(no subject)

[arethinn]

Right now I'm running Win2K on my computer. I bought an XP upgrade disc just in case I decided I ever wanted to switch to XP. So, tell me some reasons why I might or might not want to do that, aside from the activation thing (which I haven't decided if it bothers me enough to make it a no-go), or networking features, which are unlikely (although not impossible) to ever be used in my household.

Edit: two comments so far are "greater stability". I haven't had Win2K crash at all since I've been running it, not that I can recall. Granted that's only been a few months now, but actually, I very rarely crashed Win98, either. I don't know whether this is luck or because my computer likes me, but as stability has really never been an issue for me, getting any more of it isn't of great importance.

Comments

[dreamfall.livejournal.com]

I have XP at home and Win2K at work. Both are stable, but XP is a LOT easier to tweak, add stuff to, remove stuff from, and use in general because it's geared a lot more for the personal user than W2K is. Some features of XP I particularly like:

Task manager gives you a lot of good info, not only what's running but how much resource it's using and what thread processes are active.

You can run older software under XP in an emulation-type mode, ie if you have software originally designed for W95 or 98 it runs easier on XP than on 2K because you can tell XP to run it in 95 or 98 emulation mode.

It self-recovers from the very, very rare crash you might occasionally get. I think I've crashed mine maybe once (computers like me, too) but B crashes his about twice a week, mainly because he insists on clicking seventy different things all at once thinking that's somehow gonna make it run faster. It doesn't give you the BSoD, it actually recovers.

Overall it's just (IMO) a lot easier and smoother to use than W2K. You can also get a nice set of tweaky powertoys from MS' website that add some really nice functionality to XP (such as having coolswitch show a small screenshot instead of just an icon, nice when you have multiple browsers open, a nifty power-calculater, etc). I like it quite a bit, actually.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

You can run older software under XP in an emulation-type mode, ie if you have software originally designed for W95 or 98 it runs easier on XP than on 2K because you can tell XP to run it in 95 or 98 emulation mode.

I haven't actually had any problems with this except for DOS stuff that won't run under 2K (that I assume won't run under XP either, although I might try in 95 emulation). But good to know.

You can also get a nice set of tweaky powertoys from MS' website

Heh... I've already been a tweaker in this regard. Besides TweakUI I have a third-party thing called Xteq which does a bunch of random stuff, some of it useful, some of it just fun (e.g. changing tooltip text, making the BSOD any colour you like, etc.). But also, good to know.