I've just installed XP RC2, and what a nice plecent.... I have played Counterstrike in 1280 x 1024 on my Geforce2 MX and 256MB PC2100 DDR ram. It just floting away like a sweet baby. My Quake3 is more stabel like never before and my Cable modem download speed is incresed in speed... Looking forward to the final release...Just one word..... WOOUW!!!

okay, I just installed RC1 and besides being the slowest install I ever experienced it was pretty well seamless. My memory could and should be upgraded so that initself may have been a factor. As far as probs using existing apps, so far so good. As far as the look, it does take somewhat getting used to but that is normal after using Win9x for so long. The size of the OS is bigger then I would have guessed but again to be expected.

I'm running XP RC2 and its a sh*t load of eye candy. I am a Linux and Win 2000 user by nature, but I thought I'd give XP a whirl.

So far I've had over a dozen crashes. Some resulted in auto reboot, which I promptly changed to "no action" and each created a crash report, which was sent off to Microsoft. Granted most of these were Quake 3 related crashes. The game is completely unplayable in this version, or at least on my system. I have a very standard system, P3 800; 384 Mb Ram; Geforce 2MX; ASUS Board.

Besides all the eye candy, which is nicer to look at than the gray boxes, XP to me has really not added anything for which there can be a justified $350 (CAN) price tag for a mere "upgrade". Ok, there is some cute features in My Pictures, easier copy and paste within folders and a plethera of other task simplifiers. But truthfully, I can do all of this in about the same time in 2000. You learn to adapt and tweak your system for maximum speed, or at least I do.

As a website designer and hosting company, I would reccommend XP to newbies for sure, but for us old timers, I'd think extremely hard and long about "upgrading" to the new eye candy.

Now Linux, I have run, installed and tried EVERY version of Linux there is including FreeBSD and Unix. And... I love them all. BUT, they are not ready for the desktop demand and features that I need just for everyday work and play. Without question, Linux rules the server arena and I feel the only real place for it. Even that is a chore to set up (web server and the like). I'm familiar with .cfg files and scripts, but for the week or two of setting up an Apache webserver in time, I threw up an IIS 5.0 in 15 mins, without ANY training. The l o n g time I've used Windows made that possible and of course simple interfaces and task handlers. Granted I've tried setting up a server using Webmin and it is faster, but still a chore. I love Linux, it just needs to be more user friendly to become mainstream.

All that I have said is of course, IMHO...

XP doesnt seem to be crashing like that for many people. Iv never had a single crash big enough to need a restart in it. I suggest you check all your drivers are certified, if they are not, then that is the problem.

As for what you say about setting up IIS vs Apache, indeed. 5 Minutes max to install IIS if it isnt installed, depending on your connection speed another 5 ~ 20 mins to use windows update to make your box secure, another 2 or 3 setting up actual folder to host the website. job done. I dont know apache too well, but im guessing installing and configuring takes significantly longer than the time taken for IIS.

nothing is "ready for the desktop" but especially not a windows operating system, I am tired of code red type attacks, and getting i love you letters from stupid windows f**s that don't know how to not use outlook

betasuck

FunkyFred: Like I said the crashes or some of them were due to trying to run Quake 3. I've reset the sytem to not "auto-boot", but that was the default setting. Now it will just do it's usual "lock-unlock" then back to the desktop.

Many other crashes came about when I removed a 128 mb strip of Ram (reducing the system from 512 to 384) upon re-boot, it was one crash sceen after another. There was easily eight or nine in a row, till it stopped. These are the reasons for my system crash.

As far as general stability, it is stable, don't get me wrong. Also all the driver are "right out of the box". In otherwards, I've not had to install any drivers outside of what came with XP.

I've got almost the same setup as BootUp - and play quake 3 on it - I've not see the first blue screen.

code red doesn't effect desktop users. And if you're sick of 'i love you' letters from 'windows f**s', then stop using outlook, or windows, or both. Unless you yourself are one of those windows f**s!

darksaber:
What video card are you using to be able to Quake on XP?

I'm using the Geforce 2 MX with the Nvidia 12.41 drivers for 2000. The game starts up, but then it locks up, the same type of lock up when you try to get a server list and your net connection is out. Click, click, click... crash.

Any tips?

Chris,
stopping to use Outlook Express will not help if you don't want to receive them. It will only help if you don't want to send them. So basicly, if me and the rest of the world don't want to receive Melissa and friends, everybody needs to stop using Outlook.

*sigh* this all coming from linux-experts. Everyone does NOT need to stop using Outlook nor Outlook Express. And everyone who does use one or both of these programs is not a f** or a loser or (insert any insult here). Tell me, does Step 1 of starting to use Linux include a compulsary session of learning how to insult everyone that does not use Linux? Just an obvious thing I've seen on betanews, just about everyone if not everyone who does loves Linux has to resort to insulting everyone, as if this will make anyone want to change to Linux. "You mean I can change to Linux and become immature, ignorant and I get to insult everyone...cool!". I mean f**? what the hell does this have to do with any os? And I do realise it wasn't you who said it, but my comment was to the person who did.

Now back on topic =) Surely you can without too much hassle:

1) Set up a filter to block Melissa and friends,
2) Install an anti-virus program,
3) Turn OFF auto-preview so nothing gets executed, and
4) Althought this should be #1, STOP running every single thing you get if your inbox!

The answer is education nothing more. Yes we are all trying to make computers as easy as possible so that anyone is able to use them. Is this possible with no education what-so-ever...unfortunately no! You can't blame Microsoft or me or your sister or your neighbour's dog for you executing a program on your computer. If you did not know that it could do damage, that's where the education comes in. Since everyone likes comparing cars to computers, I'll give you a good example. Cars are meant to be accessible by everyone, to make them as easy as possible we even made them automatic - but guess what! You still have to learn how to drive them, and you still have to learn the road rules. You cannot go and blame the maker of your car because 'you didn't know that driving it into a brick wall could cause you any harm'.

So no, the solution to the problem is not to stop everyone from using it! Viruses/worms/trojans/whatever are not going to go away - so let's educate people about them.

Your choice of words shows your maturity or lack of.Don't like Windows? Don't use it.

Windows XP is just a new version of windows.. whether you use it or not is a personal choice, from my experience Windows XP actually runs quite fast, there are several bugs, but hell in over 50 million lines of code that make up windows, how can one make that etirely error free. Operating systems have their place and in some cases one may be a much better solution than the other, also cost can have a lot to do with it. As for corporate OS's to try change from NT to say linux would be quite hard when there are specific applications that companies use that are only supported by windows. Ie: accounting software, reference libraries for information, calculators. all of which could be made to run under linux but at what cost? even though linux does fall under GNU licencing nobody is going to sit there and write software for free if they will se no real benefit from it. So till the time comes windows will continue to own linux in that department. linux as a server, web server, database yes but the line gets drawn around about there. Someone mantioned the long time it takes to set up apache as opposed to IIS *couch* well i cant remember the last time it took me longer than a few minutes to set up apache. a precompiled binary is extracted placed int the right spot and then you run the config which you can accept the defaults.. overall you could get the same reults in the same time fram with both apache and IIS, though it helps to have a clue. What i would like to see is some of windows code leaked to somone who can utilise it. develop a few linux libs to enable running win32 based applications. I think MS would get a little worried then and i might then consider installing it on my workstation.

OK, I got it working.
One point in favor of XP is the fact that I am able to run the video card (Geforce 2 MX - 32mb) at a much higher level or quality.
1024 X 768
Color Depth: 32 bit
Tex Detail: Full
Tex Qual: 32 bit
Bilinear

Using Win 98 or 2000 on the same system and card, the max without video lag complications, the system could only be set at 16 bit and 800 X 600. This is a great improvement in performance with XP. Even I'm impressed.

Chris,
as I have said before in previous other postings, I am not a Pro-Linux guy or even a Linux expert, never claimed to be and never will claim it. Too bad some of those postings mysteriously disapeared...
At my previous company, I was mail-admin for a couple of domains. We ran sendmail on Solaris. None of our users ran Outlook but still we got a Melissa messages. Every day I had to add some more rules to sendmail to block the next generation of Melissa. I even mailed some friends to warn them but too late, their mail-admin had spread it himself (the irony...).
You said in your mail that if I don't want to receive Melissa messages, I need to stop using Outlook and Windows. Well, I/we weren't using either of them but still got a lot of those messages and that was my point.
Where in my posting did I insult anybody? You made an incorrect statement. Not using Outlook and Windows does not prevent you from receiving those messages; it will prevent you from sending them. As I cannot prevent from receiving those messages (I would have to give up my fulltime jobs just to configure filters and update virusdefinitions ;-) ), we must prevent those messages from being sent. As you said yourself, the only way to do this is for nobody to use Outlook.
The other way of course is to be sceptical to anything you receive, especially when it has an attach. Those usually get hosed by me, even if they seem OK. Mail received from unknown is treated even more carefull.
But that off course requires a little re-education and Microsoft has made it so easy and said you can start using it out of the box that most users don't get that basic education and just open, click and do whatever they like.

Chris, you know I hate car analogies so. In this case again, you cannot compare them. Microsoft put some technologie in their OS without thinking about security. If a car manufacturer puts some dangerous technologie in a car (how come we still have no auto-pilot in the car?) without thinking about security, I think he'd be held responsable. In case of the car, people could get killed, in case of Microsoft, the internet could have serious problems.

'how come we still have no auto-pilot in the car?'

Probably because it hasn't been perfected yet, or at least isn't 'perfect' enough to be safe. I'm not a pilot by any means but I've heard and been told that no auto-pilot system comes close to replacing an 'ace' pilot - don't know how correct this is, but I would imaine that it would be. Althought it would be great to get into your car, say an address and have it drive you there! Bit like a taxi really. Then again it would take away from my enjoyment of driving a car.

As for the dangerous technologies.....what's dangerous in Microsoft Products? VBA especially for applications such as Outlook? I guess you could argue that it is dangerous, you could also argue that it's what developers have wanted (not this particular developer - but others). Maybe a sandbox of some kind would help - then again it would be a total waste of development time and effort. Reasoning behind this is:

a) People (both developers and non-developers) are already using VBA for Word and Excel (to name two applications) - telling them that MS is now limiting what they can do (and possibly breaking what they currently have running) will do nothing more than result in MS getting billions of complaints. "You can't give someone a new toy and then take it away from them"

b) limiting what can be done through VBA on an application basis (e.g. net applications) is pointless because I'm sure you can send the word document with the relevant script imbedded and when you open it in Outlook it will lauch Word which won't have the sandbox.

Is IIS a dangerous technology? I wouldn't think so! So it's had bugs in it, many buffer overflows even. It's something that should have been better checked - and I would hope that someone does better checking of it. But this is no different to any other product...How many buffer overflows have been found in BIND? sendmail? apache? and over how many years? Are all of these technologies dangerous too?

Indeed no auto-pilot is safe enough to replace a pilot (yet, who knows...) The point is that VBA was and is no safe technology either. It lacks security which allows mis-usage. Microsoft didn't see it fit to put in security as it would indeed limit it's usage. A sandbox would have been a nice solution but as you said: now it's too late. People are using it and wouldn't like to see any major changes to it that would break their applications. The fact is, it's still a dangerous application and Microsoft should've thought at the consequences/possibilities before thinking about how this would gain popularity fast (and marketshare).
I wasn't thinking of IIS as it is not a technology but rather an application (a webserver). In one of my previous postings (hope it didn't disappear mysteriously as well), I said there were security flaws in Unix (in general, not just Linux) and named BIND as an example with the recent worm. You cannot get a program 100% bugfree (well you could if you had a couple of 1000 years), but a security breach combined with the possibilities of e.g. VBA (read lack in security in...) makes for a dangerous combination. My Apache test-webserver (running on Solaris, not Linux), runs as user Nobody (with almost no priviliges). I do not know how or as who IIS runs, but seen that there's a script that performs a shutdown of any server running an infected IIS looks like it has got a pretty high level. WU-ftp is also a program that's had it's share of buffer overflows, but you can try and limit the misusage of those holes by running as a restricted user in a chroot'ed environment.

Who is stilling from who?

Many people are saying, that Linux community, is stilling from Microsoft?!? That Linux is just a cheep clone of a PRE-WIN95...
Hmmmm.... they clearly haven't tried KDE 2.x or Gnome 1.4... They have a MUCH better GUI then Microsoft Windows... XP is trying to clone the nice a easy to use GUI that Linux have...
Most of the thing, that are NEW i XP... are old news i Linux... and more stabile i Linux!

Try reading this article:
http://www.systemlogic.net/agurusworld/19/

If you want a stabile and easy to use OS.... Try Linux-Mandrake 8.0

Ok, first of all, if you're going to start throwing accusations around, the word is stealing, not stilling.

Secondly, who says linux is a cheap clone of pre-Win95? linux is a kernel, if you're going to compare anything to the windows gui then you have to compare window managers or desktop managers. As for the pre-win95 look, from memory there's a fvm95? or something like that window manager which tried to copy the windows UI. It failed.

Before KDE and Ximian Gnome, Linux had probably 2 distinct types of UI's for all of it's window managers, the first being like cde and the second being like afterstep/WM. (I realise there were more than 2 and I realise that they were all slightly different, but UI wise, that's fairly much all you got). Therefore I'm curious as to where you got the idea that XP copied any UI from Linux? If you had said that XP looks like it might have been taken/based on OS X then there would be some merit there.

Now, back to my original point, when KDE first came in it looked like a cross between cde and windows UI, and it has developed from there. But wether it copied the windows ui or the mac ui or any other ui is irrelevant. Everyone learns from eachother as to what aspects are good/required in a ui. As for KDE or Gnome being a better UI than XP's UI, that is nothing more than personal preference. It's like me telling you that Red is better than Blue, totally meaningless.

As for stability, don't know about you but I'm running a desktop at home not a server! Therefore Win2K is stable enough for me. It hasn't yet crashed on me (that's not to say it's crash-proof - I wouldn't be so ignorant to assume that) and that's all I need. I wouldn't get any more stability from running Linux.

Finally I'll step into a pair of Linux shoes and simply say that Mandrake is for the 'newbies', go onto the Linux channels on irc and tell them how cool you are with your Mandrake distibution and we'll see what they have to say.

Well said!

Even if some people might whine that it's not, it is... I mean, what Windows OS was released 100% working? None. Then again, what program has? Not everyone can predict how millions of lines of code might interact with eachother, people! And it's NOT easy to debug it all... But Windows XP is solid, works marvelously and deserves its time in the spotlight. Forget the product activation nonsense, forget the whole debate about raw sockets, just use the OS because it makes you feel good. heh.

A good thing indeed. Windows XP is solid and stable enough to look forward to. Like 2K before it, Microsoft got it right. It may still have bugs or better it will still have bugs, but what do you expect. Certainly from an end-user point of view XP is good news. User-friendly, attractive, compatible and stable, while advanced users can tweak it the way they want. I for one am looking forward to this.

Still don't understand why they dropped smart tags though.

They announced then dropped the very controversial smart tags in order to appear cooperative, and get the somewhat-less-controversial product activation in.

With Longhorn (the next release) they will announce then drop the new Mindcontrol feature, and get the somewhat-less-controversial smart tags feature in.

Ha!

heheheh

heheheh

But mind control is in this version of Wi......

MUST GO AND GET AN OFFICE XP SUBSCRIPTION. A C T I V A T E ! A C T I V A T E !

BWAHAHAHHA!@#

Smart Tags were dropped because people made a big stink about it, and they should have. Also Smart Tags are just a bad idea.

Web Developers don't want their web page hijacked and wh***d to the higest bidder, atleast not without getting a piece of the pie themselves. There is already enough spam to look at when people are surfing the web without having every other word on a web page linking to some corps web page also.