I'll now install WinXP - anything I should know?

[Nuno]

Interesting...Runs very smooth here on one machine that has a Duron 1.2 GHz and a Millennium I @ 1024x768x85Hz with all eyecandy turned on...

Define smooth... Unless the good old Millennium I supports constant alpha blending and per pixel alpha blending at hardware level, it won´t be smooth, no matter how you try.

[Pace]

Make the default action for .VBS files to open in notepad

Switch of every possible way of scripting and ActiveX

Remove cable between Windows and Internet

Well, you did ask?

P.

[Admiral]

Before I figured the problem was my ram, my OS used to get corrupt about 3 times a day,

Used to hate XP too before I found one of my ram sticks was bad.
After I installed SP1 I fell in love with it, my only regret is that I'm stuck with only 256 ram.

You might want to try TweakUI for XP or some other utils M$ has there.

[az]

OK - a few more questions:

Why is my harddisk in PIO mode? I have set the controller (SiS 735 onboard) to enable DMA, if possible. Under 98SE, DMA could be enabled for all my drives.

How do I disable Windows Messenger?

I'm sure more are to follow

AZ

[Admiral]

In Device manager (Control Panel System/Hardware/Device manager) under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" select Primary IDE Channel (or Secondary) go to Advanced Settings and under Transfer Mode select "DMA if available".

'bout Windows messanger, open it go to tools/options/preferences and uncheck everything under General (it will kill it from your startup).
In outlook express' options go to general and uncheck "Automatically log on to Windows Messanger" (this is supposed to make it not open when you run outlook express, though by me it still does).

To run the System Config utility (to get ridd of progs and services at startup that you don't need) type msconfig at start/run.

[Pace]

I think he did the "DMA if available" Admiral. As you say though, it moved from the hard disk drive to the hard disk controller properties from Win98 to Win2000.

Did you use XP native SiS IDE drivers? Or install SiSs own drivers?

Auto-log on does just that, logs on - otherwise it just plain loads it. In other OSes you can of course uninstall it, dunno about XP.

Solution to problems: Install Win2000 (can't have an XP post without that ).

P.

[Admiral]

I think he did the "DMA if available" Admiral.

ups

Auto-log on does just that, logs on - otherwise it just plain loads it. In other OSes you can of course uninstall it, dunno about XP.

Add or remove progs/ Add/rem Windows Components and the damn bastard's still alive

[Slougi]

I install a new shell and internet browser on xp always, u might wanna consider that as well. I use lightstep + opera, but have also used aston + mozilla. Either way, it'll run a lot nicer.

[az]

Opera is a no-brainer for me

Well... I think it uses microsoft drivers. There are three devices there:

Primary IDE controller, Secondary IDE controller, and SIS PCI IDE controller. Drivers are by microsoft. Primary and secondary controllers' vendors are detected as "(Standard-IDE-ATA/ATAPI-Controller)". Primary uses IRQ 14, secondary uses 15. First one was set to "DMA if available", still only PIO, with the 60GXP the only drive on it, second one was set to "PIO only", corrected that, still no change.

I have the feeling that XP is a little more complicated than 9x, but maybe I just have to grow into it

AZ

[DosFreak]

Umm...yes XP is just a "tad" bit more complicated than 9x.

So how exactly do you have your controllers setup?

PM:
PS:
SM:
SS:

[Tomasz]

az

Primary IDE controller, Secondary IDE controller, and SIS PCI IDE controller. Drivers are by microsoft. Primary and secondary controllers' vendors are detected as "(Standard-IDE-ATA/ATAPI-Controller)". Primary uses IRQ 14, secondary uses 15. First one was set to "DMA if available", still only PIO, with the 60GXP the only drive on it, second one was set to "PIO only", corrected that, still no change.

Yeah Windows XP tries to be intelligent and detects DMA modes by itself... if something goes wrong (e.g. a device times out on the ide bus, it even disables DMA behind your back and does not let you reenable it with normal means.
Please look at the following key in your registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\
Three subfolders 0000, 0001, and 0002 should be present:
0002 should be your primary ide channel (at least that's how it is on most of my systems)

Check 0002 for the following settings:
""MatchingDeviceId"="primary_ide_channel"
"DriverDesc"="Primary IDE Channel"

"MasterDeviceTimingMode"=dword:00008010
"MasterDeviceTimingModeAllowed"=dword:ffffffff
"SlaveDeviceTimingMode"=dword:00008010
"SlaveDeviceTimingModeAllowed"=dword:ffffffff

As far as I know, to allow Ultra DMA, all the TimingModeAllowed keys must be set to ffffffff (0000001f means that Ultra DMA is not allowed, thus PIO Only shows up in the device manager)

The TimingMode keys reflect the actual state of DMA:
00000010 = Some PIO Mode
00002010 = Ultra DMA Mode 2
00008010 = Ultra DMA Mode 4
00010010 = Ultra DMA Mode 5

One of the annoyances for me with Windows XP is that sometimes it changes my DMA configuration behind my back. For example, if I try to read some damaged cds which result in errors from the drive, stupid Windows XP thinks that they drive is malfunctioning and reverts it to PIO only by switching TimingModeAllowed from ffffffff to 0000001f. To fix this I have to go into the registry and change it back! If you are sure that your devices support DMA, you can do the same. Finally to check if Windows is detecting IDE errors, please go to Control Panel-Administrative Tools-Event Viewer-Choose System and then look for errors in the right pane.

Hope this helps,
Tomasz

[Tomasz]

Nuno

Define smooth... Unless the good old Millennium I supports constant alpha blending and per pixel alpha blending at hardware level, it won´t be smooth, no matter how you try.

To me, smooth means responsive (e.g. windows when dragged around the screen are not redrawn with with a delay line by line). Additionally, semitransparent menus pop up instantaneously when clicked and disappear instantaneously when they are supposed to. Of course the Millennium does not support alpha effects, hell it even gets a whopping score of 4 in XPBench! But the default skin in windows does not really use an extravagent amount of transparency effects so it performs quite well. The only problem I see is some tearing when dragging windows around- but it is much better than my old P90 did with "show window contents while dragging" enabled in Win98. I wonder what the Parhelia scores in XPBench? I remember they said it accelerates all windows XP gui functions.

[Nuno]

You really have to try a card that accelerates all XP 2D to see the difference. Of course it´s not painfully slow, far from it, but you notice a big difference.

[Tomasz]

Yeah, I use an ATI Radeon 8500 which I assume supports some form of XP 2D acceleration, but to tell you the truth I do not notice a big difference on the default skin, besides the fact that the windows break up less when dragged. However I do only get about a score of 60 on XPBench, which seems to be common on the Rage3D forums but nowhere near the scores of 1000+ I've seen on the XPBench site. So who knows what ATI enables in different driver revisions.

[Nuno]

...or maybe was just my KyroII that is a fine card, but it isn´t the best card accelerating winXP out there. I do not find hard to believe that even a Millennium I (that still is one fine 2D card in many aspects) can outperform it.