What OS! do you use?

[Guru]

No need for personal insults Gurm!

[Gurm]

Ok, a couple quick topics:

DOS Boxes:

For reasons that are still unclear, when you pair a DOS virtual sound/IRQ/Mem/CD driver such as VDMSound with XP's DOS box, you get nearly 100% of games running versus perhaps only 40% with Win2k. The author of VDMSound has some ideas as to why, but can't verify them because of MS's damn closed API's. (See, I'm not just a blind MS zealot!)

RAID:

At least PART of the problem is... I'm unclear on the NAME of the feature, but basically WinXP has, by default, an extra "safety" feature of RAID turned on by default. This is ESPECIALLY painful when that feature isn't supported by the hardware (virtually all IDE RAID implementations) and still measurably painful even when it is. You can turn it off, but doing so is not entirely straightforward. Supposedly the "fix" (just making the behavior identical to that in Win2k) was supposed to be in SP1 but has been bumped to SP2 for reasons that are totally unclear at this point.

Additionally, that's not the ONLY thing slowing RAID down - even people who have successfully disabled that feature report that their RAID is STILL a bit slower than in Win2k. MS knows about the problem but is NOT being very forthcoming as to the causes of it.

- Gurm

[Gurm]

My original vitriol-ridden post has been replaced with this kinder, gentler version:

Math is your friend. You need math. Everyone needs math.

When someone says "Gee, don't buy XP because then Bill will get your money and use it to buy cybernetic borg implants", they probably don't know any math.

When that person says "Win2k is cheaper than WinXP Home!", that person FAILED remedial math.

Now, while the law prevents us from taking such low-IQ individuals and putting them away in the funny farm, or even keeping them from working at McDonald's, we can encourage them to LEARN SOME DAMN MATH.

- Gurm

[Jon P. Inghram]

You can feel the love around here.

[Greebe]

Yo Gurm!

It's one thing to mildly insult another with your point, and entirely another to drill them into the bloody ground with excessive flaming.

Stop it now!

[Technoid]

hm Tested raid in XP and it all flaky
high as hell and low as hell all mixed up...

in W2K I atleast get more stable results

[High_Jumbllama]

Back on topic,

I use 98SE at home. I get 2K put in wherever I can when asked for server and workstations though I am warming up to XP at the school on one of the machines with my only hate being the "product activation feature".

[Gurm]

cking,

It certainly could be. Honestly I forget the name of the feature - I ran across a big discussion of it last week. Basically whatever it is, it's off by default in Win2k, Linux, etc. and thus the big performance discrepancies. The warning about potential loss of data is silly since it's no more dangerous than in Win2k where that command is never sent.

- Gurm

[TnT]

At home I use Win98, Linux From Scratch and Mandrake 8.1 (to setup the LFS)
I have VectorLinux on a laptop, but I need to update some of the stuff to get it to work well though
At work we have WinXP and Mac OS X.

[Indiana]

I had Win2k and WinXP installed with XP used as main OS, most apps installed on the XP partition.
But now I used the opportunity of a necessary reinstall due to a mainboard change to revert back to the less blaoted and more reactive GUI-wise Win2k SP2. Win2k is slightlyfaster here for about everything, uses MUCH less RAM and is dramatically better when doing full-res video-grabs.

Currently I don't even have XP installed, I might install that on a small partition again for the sole reason of the easier FireWire networking with my laptop.

[KvHagedorn]

Looks like I missed something while I was at work, and since I missed the whole thing, I suppose there can be no hard feelings, but some of us have jobs to go to.

Let's just say I utterly despise product activation, as well as every other out-of-hand phone-home activity, and will not have anything to do with it under any circumstances, so all other points are moot. Is that clear enough for you? Everything I use works quite well on W2k, thank you, and if I want to play Galaxian, there's always my other hard drive with Win98. The future? Who knows? If there's some software I have to have XP (or whatever new MS OS) for, I will see what their attitude is at that time. If I don't like it, I will not be buying their product under any circumstances. I don't care whether they think they should have control over me, mind and body, because they are a monopoly or not. Screw them. I would probably be one of the outcasts in that camp at the end of Farenheit 451, memorizing books so that big brother couldn't destroy our culture, too.

[High_Jumbllama]

Originally posted by Indiana
I had Win2k and WinXP installed with XP used as main OS, most apps installed on the XP partition.
But now I used the opportunity of a necessary reinstall due to a mainboard change to revert back to the less blaoted and more reactive GUI-wise Win2k SP2. Win2k is slightlyfaster here for about everything, uses MUCH less RAM and is dramatically better when doing full-res video-grabs.

Currently I don't even have XP installed, I might install that on a small partition again for the sole reason of the easier FireWire networking with my laptop.

Examples? I am curious as to what you say is faster? Which apps, utilities, games, etc . . . Was this with mature XP drivers or ones that cam with it ot ones that the manufacturers put out early on? This can make a lot of difference. Which versions of 2K and XP. Or it could simply be the hardware/OS combinations?

Not trying to sound combative. I'm just curious.

[Marshmallowman]

Main thing is the RAID thing, if you do hardrive intensive stuff xp can be slow video capture..etc. Win 2k in these circumstances is rock solid.

I am using mandrake 9 and win2k, I had to many problems with winxp (pre sp1) so I went back to win2k.

I am considering giving winxp another go as soon as my new hardware arrives....maybe

[High_Jumbllama]

Ahh, I remember the raid thing. Forgot about that.

[Indiana]

Originally posted by High_Jumbllama
Examples? I am curious as to what you say is faster? Which apps, utilities, games, etc . . . Was this with mature XP drivers or ones that cam with it ot ones that the manufacturers put out early on? This can make a lot of difference. Which versions of 2K and XP. Or it could simply be the hardware/OS combinations?

Not trying to sound combative. I'm just curious.

Always the latest drivers - except if they're crappy

Games: mainly QIII, RTcW, UT2003 (don't have exact frames here, only slight differences anyways), 3DMark2001SE gained about 400 points.

Apps: mainly vid-capturing with realtime DivX'ing with both, a Hauppauge WinTV and a Cinergy.

The GUI in Win2k is more responsive as well, even if you turn the crappy lego-look off.

(I don't understand why everyone accepts the fact that WinXP does use more resources, has a much higher memory footprint,.. but when you say Win2k is slightly faster (which is the logic result of the above) some people tend to try to jump on you)