More XP Rumor Eradicating!
Most of the rumors flung around here, and elsewhere, are just that - rumors. They hold little to no merit whatsoever. I have been running Windows XP Professional Edition for over three months now and it has been working like a finely tuned machine.
Anyways, the rumors to
slay:
- Product Activation and Copyright Protection: As mentioned above by mfk, minimal copy protection was implemented. Every burnt CD I have tried as so far works. I use both Nero and Clone CD, it does not prevent you from installing them and it does not prevent you from burning. Also, XP does not in any way shape or form prevent the download, encode or decode of any media type that I have used (including MP3s). I do not even have a WMA file and I still listen to my music.
Also, Product Activation, as mfk mentioned, is as painless as possible. They are very lenient. I have re-installed XP twice now, on the same computer mind you, and I have not had to call up Microsoft to explain my situation. Note: I re-installed XP the first time with an NTFS format as I was sick of FAT32, and the second time because of a Virus not because of XPs faults.
Thanks to mfk for the following: mfk says re Windows XP: "Copy protection" consists of a corrupted CONTROLS.MAN file. Try copying an XP CD with Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4. So no copying XP CDs with Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4, just get Clone CD.
- XP Incompatibility: Yes, XP has incompatibility problems, with both hardware and software. However it also has brilliant compatibility. Put simply, XP is for the future and modern software and hardware. If you have old hardware, or wish to run old software, then do not purchase XP. Any hardware released much later than a year ago, and any software released later than two years ago, will have a significant chance of being incompatible (increasing with age of course). So if you have an old system, either upgrade or don't buy XP and stop bitching about its incompatibility. Microsoft is trying to move forward, not backwards. All new hardware and software will be XP compatible, or will have a different version for XP. Note: Almost anything that works on 2000 will work on XP. Alot of 2000 drivers work for XP too.
- DOS: Dos does exist in XP, command.com is still there, and you can still use the DOS prompt. The reason most DOS programs won't work is because unlike other Windows, where Windows boots from DOS, XP boots from itself, then DOS boots off XP. This causes major issues with DOS programs and will probably cause it to crash.
- Boot Time: Slow? Hell no. As phillihp mentioned it does 60 seconds flat on an empty machine. I have a 1.5 GHz P4 with 128 MB RDRAM, my 60 GB HDD is around 33% full and it boots in approxiamately 75 seconds (give or take a few seconds for the time taken to sign in). It loses a bit of time on shutdowns and restarts, but it is by no means as slow as what the rumors state. 90 seconds tops.
- Program Integration: Yes, XP integrates programs! Shock horror! Microsoft has been pushing in that direction for years. Aside from the fact this integration makes things 1.0x10^100000 times easier, each program can be uninstalled. Yes, that's right, we all remember Add/Remove programs don't we? Well there's a tab there, Add or Remove Windows Components, which allows you to uninstall Internet Explorer 6.0, MSN Messenger 6.0... anything that was installed can be removed.
So, that's the word on XP. It truly is a great
OS, at least compared to other Windows. For those of us not versed in
Linux, XP is the go. It is by far the most stable OS of the Windows, it is by far the fastest (on
high-end systems). Its
integration features with
MSN Messenger and
IE 6.0 are useful and make things easier. So go out and buy XP if you have a system for it!