OT: Which is better: XP or 2000? > Another Piracy Discussion

[Fyron]

I disdain it because I don't like the proposed contract "you can install it on one machine only".

That is how software has always been though... very few software packages are sold on a license that allows you to run them on multiple computers at once.

The Search is still crap (annoying, clunky and doesn't always work, even once you kill the animated characters)

It has always worked perfectly for me. I have never had it fail to find a file I was searching for before (unless that file didn't exist, of course). And, it is hardly clunky...

Sorting files by date backwards - any way to fix that?

Click the sort button for date again, and it reverses the order it sorts them.

There is weird stuff going on with the "My ..." folders

Get the power toys and you can disable ALL of those folders; just set them to whatever folder you want (even on other drives!) and it stops using them altogether.

The "you have some unused icons on your desktop" wizards.

I don't recall ever seeing that. Can you elaborate?

The further attempts to pretend like there is no DOS, thereby breaking some DOS program compatibility.

There is nothing pretend about it. There simply is no DOS kernal in XP. Go get that FreeDos or whatever it was to have a nice Version of "DOS" running when you need it. Or make a Win98 partition to run those old DOS games. Very simply fix.

The annoying features I haven't figured out yet how to exorcise from the new "Start Christmas tree".

Just use the "Classic" start menu, and it is identical to the start menu in 2000 (and I think it is the same as in 98, but with the control panel stuff added, which is a good thing ).

some accessibility wizards opened by pressing five times the caps key for example

That is because you chose to set up the accessibility wizards when you installed the OS. Just remove them and that will stop.

save option for hard drives which destroys Mozilla settings files,

What? When did you ever get that to happen? I have never seen anything bad happen to my Mozilla files. Granted, I am using Firebird rather than the standard Mozilla, but it is the same basic thing.

[ November 27, 2003, 20:40: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Roanon]

No question - use 2000. XP only if you are an expert and know every option and how to turn them off (some of them are carefully mis-phrased and look like turned off when actually on). Or if you don't mind to be spied upon more than any trojan virus does, forced unwanted "updates" on you, and suffer random disabling of non-M$ programms.
Do not forget you cannot even turn off many spyware functions - even if they are made to appear to be off or non-working (like that "unregistered" XP JayBDay wrote about that has phoned home for sure). You have to install XP antispy to be at least a bit safe. Otherwise, M$ can reconfigure any of your settings as they like. I refuse to service any XP computer without antispy on it, and without expertly disabled update options. Apart from the overall personal security, such blatant violation of consumer rights should not be supported, IMHO.

[Fyron]

Or if you don't mind to be spied upon more than any trojan virus does,

forced unwanted "updates" on you,

Extremely easy to disable. Just turn off hte "keep me up to date automatically" feature.

and suffer random disabling of non-M$ programms.

Uh huh... I have never seen that happen to anyone.

[Baron Grazic]

I've have 98SE, W2K & XP on different machines, and Win98 is the most stabilist. I never turn that machine off, just standby, do almost all my work on it, and I haven't had to rebuild it since I first built the computer 5 years ago.

W2K would be my second choice. Once you patch the security holes, it just runs what it is told to run.

XP seems better for running games, for the simple fact that you can tell the game to run in different operating system mode. ie. Run this game in Win95 mode. But the first thing I also do, it remove allthe 'user friendly' crap M$ put on it. Make it look like 98, and away you go.

Not sure where the information came from about W2K not being supported or sold. Microsoft's "hard drop-dead dates" for Win2000 are:-
No non-security hotfixes after 1/1/2004
No paid Online support after 1/1/2005

[Fyron]

You have been extremely lucky with Win 98 if you have been running it for 5 years without rebooting it. If you don't install and uninstall stuff all the time, there is rarely ever a need to reinstall Windows. I only installed 2000 once and used it for nearly 2 years (with the occasional reboot) before going XP.

[ November 28, 2003, 00:30: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Baron Grazic]

Oops, perhaps I should have said 'rarely' turn it off, instead of never.

[JayBdey]

I would like to know how it has managed to "phone home" without an internet connection. Unless all XP machines came with a satellite up link to allow wireless communication with the MS mother ship.