I finally got XP(thank my Dad)

[SoUlFaThEr]

jup and i cant do shit with it

yeah its more stable.....but i unfortunately have it installed on a 2G partition designed only for my OS and it weighs 1.5g so i cant download or install anything.

in a 2 hour attempt to "easily" set up a network between 2 puters....nothing happened.

i have installed it now total of 7 times and still cant get everything working because i have no control over anything.....it does everything the way it wants to.....i cant use my own drivers for the stuff i bought(besides an external geforce driver) so my sound for example is totally messed up and sounds like im listening to shit in a pool.

i am also not able to set up a direct connection to the net. just wont do it.
so i have to use this damn t-online software which takes up 23% of my CPU rescources to run.....so i cant play steam at all.

now i feel like a noob in a box with no way out.

but boy........its really stable and doesnt crash every 5 minutes like my 98

im trying to decide which is really better.....

[TruB]

go back to 98 or use 2000..

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

wait, before throwing the OS to the bin there must be something you're doing wrong. XP comes with a hell of a lot of hardware drivers, you normally don't have to install third-party drivers at all. It should detect and setup your hardware quasi completely during the install.
Another thing too, with WinXP it is recommended to stick with Microsoft's drivers as much as possible EVEN if you've got third party drivers for your hardware. For example if Microsoft has got a driver for your nVidia card and you have a nVidia CD with a driver on it, it is recommended to keep Microsoft's driver for consistency reasons, and even more you SHOULD keep it especially if everything works well with your hardware.

The network setup is a bit different indeed. Get yer ass on IRC, I'm gonna hotline you up with this one.

And yeah, if you've got only 2 gigas to spare to the system, I understand it's a bit short Don't you have other partitions aside of this one ? If not really you should consider buy a larger HDD... they're not very expensive nowadays.

[Jeffrccar]

@SoulFather: Did you reformat that partition before installing XP onto it?
also, what are you using to connect the two computers together with?

[biohazerd87]

Well I am not a huge programer but I am a Certified Microsoft Tech, and I would suggest for the perposuses your using your computer for would be WIN 2000 NT Pro. Also a pretty stable OS. But designed for networking, hence the "NT" network technology. The only difference between XP and NT is interface changes and more noobish geared. Now if you are running windows XP PRO then that is a different story. XP home just sucks balls. But yeah go with 2000 NT

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I assume he's talking about XP Pro ??? XP home isn't even worth the talk anyways

[the Carpenter]

XP is the devil.
I've said it before ... I'll say it again.
XP is the devil.

The 1st thing I noticed about XP was that I could no longer use my music software.
I'd payed money for it, only a year & 1/2 earlier.
No drivers available.
No compatability mode.
No way of using it.
Then I noticed like a 100 other crappy things about it too, like all the hidden things, running in the background of the background.
The system restore is friggin' hilarious too !
What's the point of restoring something that was fucked as soon as you installed it? LOL !
Just wait until you try to get rid of it !
Hahaha !!!
There's no option for a reformat with XP !
I forget exactly what I had to do to free my drive of it, but it was more than a small effort.
Once 98 is declared officially dead, I will move over to linux.
Cuz I ain't about to let Billy Gates/George W. Bush into my living room.
Not via XP ... & certainly not via Longhorn.
Those two prickers can kiss my ass !
WORD.
p.s. I run 98 for days at a time while I map.
No crashes.
No problems.

[Huntkillaz]

hmm.. really carp?

yes its resource hogging .. and has a lot of background files running but u just need to know what to do to make it go away..

1) it does reformatt...put the cd in the cd drive n options will come up

2) i run xp on 128mb ram of which only 70-90 i used during normal use by xp...if i disable themes i knock off another 10mb
goto google ..and look up blackviper.com
get his service reggy's modify the "safe" to ur needs

3) goto run & type "msconfig" n stop and background services under startup

4) stay uptodate with latest drivers n updates (i only use service packs and haven't had much problems

5) sytems restore is bugged i hate it to ..my last install gives me a blank screen when i try open sys restore
hence y u should backup preferably to cd or another hd

[SoUlFaThEr]

i have Home Edition

i reformatted 2 times even

the only 3rd party driver i have is Nvidia

i cant go get another OS

i have many partitions on 2 HDD

so i need Partition Magic and im ok.....but im not buying that im calling in some help to make that happen(friend)

i was using a crossover cable and my networks were set up by me in about 5 minutes with 98se and never had problems......its not important that im able to do this tho.....it might be nice but i dont NEED it.

so far i have everything running ok but my sound is fucked up. im under water it seems and i cant fix it.....and its the XP provided driver.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

AAARGH

XP Home...

well yeah I quite agree that the thing they call XP Home is a smelly pile of shit.

XP Pro on the other hand is a worthy OS. Very stable. You don't even need the system restore feature. Just disable it and you'll save 200-300 Mb disk space.

Disable all the visual craps too... put your config into "max performance" instead of "best appearence" and you'll get the barebones Win98 look with no other crap to hog on your memory.

SF, what do your partitions look like ? Do you have several OSes installed on the same machine ? If not, just reformat them all into NTFS and eventually merge them together. If you can get something like 10Gb space in one partition, WinXP will make itself VERY comfortable. 5Gb is enough too for the system and an average range of programs.

You don't need Partition Magic to manage your partitions, you can do that too directly from inside Windows with the disk manager. I think it's in Control Panel -> Administration Tools but maybe they've moved it in XP Home. There are LOTS of difference between XP Home and XP Pro, they ripped out/simplified a lot of things for XP Home making it a n00bie/yo granma OS. But for the average user it's already a fcking pain in the ass.

You should be able to do networking with the same crossover cable too. The setup is just a bit different. Just remember to NEVER use the "networking wizard"!!! (never use ANY of the wizards anyway).

What is the soundcard you use anyway ?
I bet it's just a hardware setup problem. You may be outputting sound in 5.1 format or something or vice versa and the sound jack is not plugged into the right place, or the hardware mixer volume is incredibly low, or there's a buffer size to increase somewhere or something.