Let me be the first to say... I HATE Windows XP. I would rather use a Commodore 64 with a single floppy drive hooked to a B&W TV and a 300 baud modem that use XP again.

I had been using 98 for a few years. My friend installed XP Pro soon after its release. I liked the interface and the fact that XP is based off the NT core, so I thought I would give it a shot.

I installed it over 98 SE with no problems. After about 2 months, things started to break. Explorer would crash and take my task bar and system tray with it. If I went into any large directory, XP did a read/write cache from hell taking 5 MINUTES (I timed it), while it technically did nothing useful, and once it was done, it crashed McAfees virusscan each time. One day it did this hell spawn cache 4 times in one day!

Soon after, popups under IE quit working. Well, SOME of them I needed. None worked anymore.

Wait... it gets better!

Not all video formats work under XP! Many movies online come in Divx format. Well guess what... not all work! Several of the movies I have burned that worked fine under 98 will no longer work under XP! I almost deleted a few dozen movies that XP said were bad until I tried them on a 98 machine. Guess what? They worked fine! Media Player claims it supports all formats. NOPE! Even with the correct Divx codec, they still don't work. They say XP is just 98 and NT put together. What a lie...

So even with a good heavy duty motherboard, an Intel 800 CPU, 384 megs of memory, and a high speed hard disk, Windows XP Pro just wanted to crash all the time. It would NOT run kazaa, explorer, direct connect, and winmx all together.

If I launch kazaa, IE immediately crashes. If I exit kaza, IE will load fine. Problem with kazaa? Doubtful, since it runs just fine with exploder under 98.

Want to turn your Pentium 4 into a fast 8088 XT? Install Windows XP Pro (or Home).

Earlier this month XP corrupted my swap file so bad that I couldn't even boot to rescue mode to fix it, I had to reinstall. I figured with a fresh install that all my problems would go away. The SAME DAY I reinstalled, things started crashing again. Windows Explorer just can't stay running. As long as you don't want more than a couple windows open, you are fine.

So what have I done now? I deleted XP Pro and went back to 98 SE and things are actually running a little smoother. Sure 98 isn't even remotely stable, but my videos work, it doesn't do the hard disk read/writes from hell, and kazaa and explorer both run together once again!

Why did I ever leave Linux....

I HATE Windows XP. It isn't worth the CD it was stamped on.

If you haven't upgraded, save your money. If you want the NT core, I suggest using Windows 2000.

I applaud anybody who hasn't experienced these problems. XP is by far the worst operating system I have used in a long time.

somehow that doesn't suprise me....

personally i don't even like the interface...kinda reminds me of AOL :vibrator:

i kept with win98 but i think windows2000 could be the go

I've been using XP Pro for a few months, and although overall I like it, I think it's overrated. It's not the kick-ass operating system that it's portrayed as.
I've had trouble with several programs, including some games, so I partitioned my harddrive and now dual boot with XP Pro and 98SE.

Maybe I am just strange, but I like Windows XP! I just got an awesome computer that has Windows XP Professional on it, and I really like the system. So far, it has not frozen or crashed on me. (knock on wood) Typically, I am always getting logged off AOL, which has not happened on XP. Also, it is much more advanced. Keep in mind I am making the jump from Windows 95 to Windows XP. I'm pretty good with computers too, so I do know a little about them. I haven't run into any problems yet, although I've only had the computer for a little while.

I know a few people who hate XP, they switched back to W2000 they hated it so much, but I also have a friend who loves it. So I don't know what to think about it. I heard it had alot of problems running some games. I'm sticking with W2000. :D I can't live without my games. :lol: :goofy:

Well Christine, I must say I commend you for not having any problems with XP. I started using it in October I guess it was. I was using XP Pro, and I switched my g/f over to XP Home. For about 2 months I didn't have any problems, then problems started coming and they just kept getting worse and worse until the entire system crashed.

I thought it was because I installed XP Pro over 98 SE, but even with a fresh install, one day after it started crashing again.

I was sooo pissed off I deleted it and went back to 98. Now 98 SE is working just fine.

XP is plain bloatware. Nothing more. Between XP and 2000, the only big difference I see is the interface. The basic layout and options for XP are the same. Sure theres a few new features, but not nearly enough.

I have a bunch of movies I recorded while using 98 SE. At least 25% of them would not play under XP. I went back to 98, and guess what? They ALL work. I also had 5 movies I was afraid to burn to CD because XP said they were ALL invalid. After I reinstalled 98, guess what? All were fine.

XP is not very good at multi-tasking, and Explorer can't handle multiple tasks very well. Kazaa and Explorer won't run at the same time, but they do just fine under 98 SE together.

And like Jeff said, some games will no longer run. My video capture card did WORSE (all colors were bland), Explorer crashed more often, when I scrolled through directories on my 60 gig drive, Windows would read/write to the drive for 5 MINUTES, and it did nothing... except crash Mcafees. It did that daily. What it was doing I will never know.

I have asked about 75% of our customers what they think of Windows XP. Nobody had anything good to say about it. The interface is all I liked, and that's not enough.

If you aren't a hardcore user, it should work fine. When I say hardcore, here's what I did that XP could NOT handle:

- Run at least 4 exploder windows at once
- Burn a CD with Easy CD creator
- Have winamp running
- Kazaa was online and downloading
- Virus scanner running in background
- Photoshop loaded
- SmartFTP running
- Text editor

All of these running puts a strain on the system, especially burning CDs. XP just couldn't do it. My system would get slowed to a halt, resources went up to 100%, then it just sat there and wouldn't take input.

Oddly enough, I have done all of that under 98 SE, and even though 98 has horrible crash protection, it handled it!!

Windows XP is highly over rated. It sure as hell isn't worth the $200+ Microsoft seems to think it is.

My friend even went back to 98 because some of his games won't run under XP, and he was having compatibility problems. All of us are very experienced as well, so its not like we don't know how to run our systems.

I will probably never switch back. It takes a lot to piss me off enough to delete the windows directory and start over, and XP did it to me.

I don't stand up for 98 SE at all, but like I say, for what I do, XP just couldn't handle it. I liked the fact it was built on the NT core, so I figured it was more stable. HA HA HA!

The ONLY operating system I've used that could take one hell of a beating (which I put to it) was Linux. Windows is just not designed for heavy, hardcore usage. Never was.

I also like XP PRO, Christine.
Aside from the few programs that I had trouble with, I didn't have any problems with it. IE6 crashed a few times, but it's very rare.
However, on my old Pentium 2 system (replaced with my current Athlon), IE5.5 would crash a lot running Win 98SE.

With XP PRO, I had trouble with Need for Speed 5, Midtown Madness, Norton Antivirus 2002, and ICQ 2001b. Everything now runs flawlessly (although I now run my games in Win98SE).

I still don't think XP is THE best OS, but I certainly like it.

Some of what Billy G. and Co. have done to try and destroy advances in software design and computing freedom I can actually understand.

The anguished laments about crashing windows that have now been gloriously either totally eliminated or noticeably reduced demonstrates these are written by relatively neophyte - or at best casual - users that need to be held by the hand throughout their computer experience.

For these folks, requiring all XP compatible programs to be 'approved' by either MS or the paid "Friends of Bill" will keep them from installing every shareware or freeware program they find on a magazine cover disk or through the 'net as their sloppy computing habits and lack of understanding is what gets them into trouble in the first place.

You know the ones, their computer crashes daily and they don't know why but it couldn't be their error - it must be a fault with Win98! The ones that don't realize that it is just a machine and needs to treated like one and should only be handled by those with some - even a little - training. If you don't know what you're doing, leave it to someone who does and most problems will stop.

I can't remember off-hand the last time my Win98 system crashed and I use it for hours every day - but then again I don't go through a daily dance of install/delete/install.

I have much higher quality software than anything MS can produce - CD/RW software, music compiler, the best Firewall on the market, and others - all stellar in comparison to the 'Sub-Lite' additions to XP.

I enjoy being able to take things apart and I am happy learning about computers as I have been doing since Win 3.1.

I have Win XP Pro on my office computer and it is BORRRING! It essentially just sits there and while it will do what it is told to do, there is no pleasure in using it.

Pretty? Hey, Bill, give ME the freedom to decide when and what system component to change and what software is on MY computer and I will make my computer pretty.

Stable? Give ME the option to decide which of your bloated yet light on features bundled programs to not install on MY computer and it will be stable.

"Better than bread - Harrumph!!" Not hardly if you are into specific computer related tasks or need to do some major "behind the scenes" tweaking so your computer runs better than Billy G. intended.

Stops Piracy? Not a chance. Whether it is Bulgaria - the largest computer piracy center in Europe or Taiwan - the largest computer piracy center in Asia, there are already - and have been for some time - 'fixed' versions of both XP Home and Pro. You want to stop Piracy - do it the smart way, lower the price to reflect the value of the program.

Let's see, Zone Alarm is probably the best firewall on the market and it's FREE! It makes the joke in XP exactly that.

Your music program which is so infantile it can only handle your in-house designed codec - you should pay users to accept.

The CD/W software is so lame I wouldn't want to use to try and make a CD of pictures of my sister's garden - let alone anything of great value (sorry Sis). WinXP Home should be around $30 and maybe $40 for Pro. That would be more effective in stopping piracy than the Product Activation idea you stole from the Shareware community and try to call yours.

Maybe after Service Release 4 or 5 and Essential Update #5,893 - when install options are added, the draconian control over which software is allowed has been removed, the well-deserved cancellation of Product Activation happens so I don't have to ask for permission to use my computer (or Billy G. pays the long-distance charges from Asia), IE7 comes out and little Billy stops pouting about Sun and adds Java support, - then, maybe, I will consider accepting the FREE and legitimate and still shrink-wrapped copy of XP Pro my company bought for me.

Until then I will continue to enjoy the freedom of doing 98% of what I do now with the software and OS of my choice - Win98 - well-tweaked, capable, stable and 'Pretty' and supported by software developers around the world with programs that Bill and Co. can only get by buying out the creative companies.

rocketcharlie you read my mind!!!

A few more comments as follows...

Basically, I don't find Windows complete utter $hit. No, it DOES have its uses. I think its a great gaming system. I really do. Unreal, Quake 3, No One Lives Forever (love that game), and many others play great on 98 SE.

It does pretty good for burning CDs (I do that heavily), using Winamp, and some other basic, non critical things.

What it is NOT good for: ANYTHING mission critical. I would NEVER, EVER set up server using it. At work, we have several dozen Solaris and Red Hat servers and only ONE NT 4 server. Why? Because NT is nowhere near as stable as Unix. I could care less how much Microsoft says it is stable, its not.

The longest we have ever had NT go without a reboot was maybe 2 months. Our Unix servers frequently go 4-6 months without rebooting.

For the typical user who only plays games, surfs the web, chats, writes letters, just the basics... Windows is just fine.

I certainly do not think its anything to brag about. It's a faulty, poorly written, buggy as hell, bloated, and crash prone operating system that Microsoft lies to us constantly about.

Actually, the reason I hate Microsoft is because they LIE to us, tell us there is no known bug with xyz feature, yet the next release or the next service pack fixes it. Now wait a minute... they just said that bug wasn't there, so if that's true, where did that patch fix?

I think what really aggravates me are the people who are so blind who say "I LOVE Windows, it's great! NEVER have ANY problems with it! Works wonderful!"

Are people truly THAT blind? Do you own a Ford Pinto as well and don't believe all the horror stories? Windows is a pathetic excuse for an operating system, and always will be. The deal is, lots of software has been written for it, and Microsoft leads us to believe that we need it to run our computers. I'm sure these same people would jump off a bridge if Microsoft told them to.

Anyway, these rants can have me going on forever. I will probably always have a Windows 98 machine to play games on to do other simple things, but never to rely my critical work on.

I just wish many people took off the blinders about Microsoft, but I doubt that will ever happen.

Well. Here is my take on it. I have run every OS that Microsoft has put out since 3.1 and to me XP is the best. Not saying it is the best OS on the market, just the best that they have put out. 2000 is great for its stability, but I ran into way to many incompatibilities to have run in for an extended period of time. Mainly with games. I still have problems with a few programs, but not as many as 2000. Compatibility mode seems to work well for me. Easy CD Creator is one that still causes problems. That's why I dual boot with 98 though. Need to burn a CD, reboot and go into that partition.

I actually find gaming a better experience with XP. Just seem to get better frame rates.

I would say that for the average home user, XP would be a good system.

Maybe to some it is their best attempt. I started off with DOS 2.11 which was a few years before even Windows 1.0 came out. I still remember seeing Windows 1.0 in 85.

While XP is more stable than 98, I had WAY too many problems with it to keep it around. Sure games do run better, but too many other things break. Easy CD Creator is pure $hit under XP. Runs VERY slow. I switched to CD Extreme and it works MUCH better.

Many of my movies on CD wouldn't run under XP, but they play fine under 98.

The better core stability was all I saw as an improvement, and even that had plenty of faults. Explorer and kazaa won't run together for long periods of time, virus scan quit working, and so did a few other of my utilities.

For those who love it, use it. It is not good enough for my needs. I expect 98 to crash regularly, which it does. I expected XP to take a beating and not crash, which it can't seem to do.

I agree with you Shakey. For a typical non-power home user, XP is just fine. For a hardcore user, its a joke.

Well I'm back to 98. I need to set up my Red Hat machine again. I am starting to miss the stability of Unix. :)

I hear you, Aaaron. Why don't you judt set up another partition and dual boot? I used to run Red Hat 6.2 and it was okay. I hated RH7. Gave Caldera a shot but didn't think much of it either. Just finished downloading Mandrake 8.2 and am going to try that out this weekend. I have heard both good and bad things about it, but I like to find out for myself. Kind of curious about this new release of KDE (KDE RC3).

I've never been a big fan of dual booting. I once set up 98 and NT 4, but I didn't like that.

I have a spare pentium 200 I'm thinking about using, but I also have a hot swappable drive on my pentium iii I might use instead.

I am probably going to use RH 7.2 next time I install RH. I have 7 installed, but switched out a lot of hardware, and the existing RH install doesn't like half of what I have now.

The only variations I've used were Red Hat, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Slackware. I liked RH the best. Easy to use.

Who knows when I will get to this. Ideally I would like a bigger desk so I can have both machines going at once. I might look for a celery stick 500 or so and throw a 10 gig in there along with some other cheap shit to get a RH machine online.

I really like the stability of RH. I remember the first time I used it for more than 3 days and I was like "oh my god... you mean an operating system isn't supposed to crash!"

I highly recommend others learning it. Knowing unix can help you get a better job, and what I REALLY like about it is that most all software is free.

FTP, web servers, multimedia players, graphics editors, and tons more things. You get the source code, and if by some chance you find something that isn't free, there is always another version by someone else that is free! Even Wine (the windows emulator) is free and works fairly well.

I should look for a celery stick now that I think about it. I would ALMOST rather do that than use my swappable drives.

Originally posted by Shakey


I would say that for the average home user, XP would be a good system.

I agree.
My computer is not used for any hardcore tasks.
My PC is my stereo, DVD player, gaming console and Net surfing/chatting machine, which XP Pro handles just fine.

Compatibility was my biggest problem with RH. It didn't recognize my video card (Voodoo3), my sound card (SB Live!) or my DSL modem. If I get the chance to install Mandrake this weekend, I'll see if it does any better.

Can either of you recomend a site that helps with XP problems? I can't get my scanner that worked with '98 to work with XP at all.

Originally posted by Shakey
Compatibility was my biggest problem with RH. It didn't recognize my video card (Voodoo3), my sound card (SB Live!) or my DSL modem. If I get the chance to install Mandrake this weekend, I'll see if it does any better.

Can't say I've had that problem. The only big problem I had with RH 7.0 is that it did not support 8 IDE drives. My Asus motherboard has 4 IDE ports, 2 in the BIOS and 2 via the on board CMD BIOS chip. It's not really a controller since IDE drives have the controller built on.

Anyway, kernel 2.2.x wouldn't support it, or at least I couldn't find a way. I have read that kernel 2.4.x does, but I already had 7.0 installed and didn't want to upgrade.

My old 3dfx, dlink, intel, 3com, plextor cd burner, sound blast awe 64 gold, you name it... everything worked fine. I never tried my video capture card though. Supposedly it works fine because I have found some web sites dedicated to it.

I have found SOME compatibility problems at work with old hardware, such as some old PCI video cards or some really odd ball network cards and such, no name mostly. Although we have some S3 video cards that won't work under RH.

I guess some really new hardware won't always work because its so new it hasn't been added to the kernel. I haven't had this problem, but I've heard about it.

That's strange it didn't recognize your video card. I had the 3dfx Voodoo 3 AGP card and 7.0 found it just fine. I only had 1 sound blaster live that I returned years ago, before I started using RH so I don't know about those. I've heard they work fine. As for the DSL modem, I assume it is internal then. Mine is external using my Intel network card, and it works perfectly fine. I was debating on getting the internal, but during a RH admin class I took over a year ago, half the class said the internal card was total complete shit and not to get it. True or not, I don't know, but several people said they suck, and verizon supplied externals anyway.

Anyway, I would recommend RH 7.1 or 7.2 now. I've never really used any other linux heavily, but like I say, ALL of my hardware detected just fine. In fact, I've installed RH on really generic systems and even low end crap, like SIS chipsets (I would never own SIS or OPTI again), and RH worked fine with them.

I like the fact that you have way more control over your system than Windows gives you, its open source code, and almost everything is free.

We use solaris and red hat at work. The ONLY software I can possibly think of on any systems that isn't free is ncftp, which we only have a few copies of. The author requires a license. Other than that....its all free. That's the beauty of unix.

Open source code, stable, reliable, rock solid, and its free.

Originally posted by lostboy
Can either of you recomend a site that helps with XP problems? I can't get my scanner that worked with '98 to work with XP at all.

What type of scanner? Brand, model, interface, etc...?

The Voodoo3 was a PCI and the DSL modem was internal. That was before I upgraded my system to AGP and a cable modem. Hopefully things will work better this time.

About the scanner. It has been years since I have used one, but more details would help. Just as a start though, have you gotten the newest drivers and software from the manufacturer's site. Also you might try to run the software in compatibility mode. Probably won't help, but it is worth a try.

I have dowloaded the latest drivers from Artec and it is the 1236 USB scanner. After I downloaded the drivers and installed them XP says that the drivers are not loaded.

I have not heard of Artec, but I found this on their support site. Maybe it will help you.

1) Windows is not detecting the hardware driver. This problem can be caused by improper software and driver installation. To find out if the scanner has been detected by the computer, please follow the steps below:


Step 1: Under the Device Manager in the Control Panel, the scanner should be listed under Category of imaging devices. If such a category is not listed, the scanner is not being detected.


Step 2: If the scanner is not detected, simply follow the reinstallation instructions to reinstall the scanner again.


2) The scanner source is not being selected under the imaging software that is being used. Please make sure the scanning source is selected before scanning to an imaging software or program.

3) Please ensure that the scanner is already unlocked and cable is fully plugged on both sideS and the power led is on.

About all I would add are these things:

1) Make sure the USB ports are enabled in the BIOS. I believe by default they are, but double check.

2) Is Windows even recognizing your USB ports?

3) Are you sure the USB ports physically work? Try attaching another USB device (mouse, etc) and make sure it works. All computers I've seen with USB have at least 2 ports, although mine has 5. One port could be bad. Sometimes hardware must be reseated (the USB cable) in order to detect it.

4) Try another USB port.

5) Are you sure the scanner still works? Just because it powers up doesn't mean it still works. If you have access to a 98 machine, try it on there to make sure it still works.

Shakey had some good ideas. I am also thinking the problem is related to Winblows XP not loading the driver, but I would still check all possibilities first.

I haven't used my scanner in ages. Now I wish I hadn't bought it, but if I sold it, I would wish I had kept it.

Thank you for both of your replies. I will try your suggestions and see what happens. Thanks again.

Ok I tried all the ideas you gave me and now it tries to install the driver and the scanner then abruptly stops and gives the following error message "the class installer has denied the request to install or upgrade this device" The XP help section has no mention of this problem nor does the book I've bought to try to figure out this problem.

A friend of mine dubbed XP as "Teletubbie-Windows"... :lol:

I haven´t installed XP - with Win2K, I don´t feel a real need to do it. Some people I know who had installed XP are very satisfied, the others had already deinstalled it again, mainly because of the old "Plug-and-Pray"-issue.

I could start again about the constant need of XP to "phone home", the transmission of user data for Billys personal fun, the need for a new registration code after you had replaced some devices...these are serious reasons. The main reason for me not to install XP is the fact that this OS wants to be the Jack of all trades and masters actually none. The firewall is poor...the CD-R burning program is poor...I could go on and on.

Microsoft should have spent their energy on a "XP lite" version with a stable kernel (I have also often heard that after a certain time, XP starts to act faulty) and a fool-proof devices detection (I have the dim feeling that most of the drivers offered by the manufacturers are simply redubbed or with a hot needle reconstructed Win2K-drivers). Leave out all the crap that the current XP can´t handle.

Sorry Bill...maybe next time, with XP2003. P.S.: Your XBox is way too expensive - no one in Germany buys it! :p