Windows XP - The eXPerience Thus Far? 106
An Anonymous Coward asks: "So Windows XP has been out long enough
for those of us in the IT field to have our managers, users, and
vendors hitting us up for it (Redmond's marketing apparently worked).
So, how has Windows XP affected your IT department and company thus
far? Are you using it, or planning on using it? What made you decide
to migrate? What problems have you run into, and what features have
you found beneficial? Please leave out the anti-MS/pro-Linux rhetoric
unless it is directly related to an issue you have with XP.
Thanks!"
Re:Am I the Exception? (Score:1)
Yes, really.
They are connected to the serial "alarm printer" outputs of a few things around here.
Re:Am I the Exception? (Score:1)
It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that has to support Win95 machines! =)
Re:Am I the Exception? (Score:2)
Gee, maybe semi-decent USB support and better gaming....how about a better shell....how about better power management on my laptop...etc...etc..
My eXPerience with it (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not going back. Sure, it doesn't work with my older web cam, my opti931 sound cards and a few other *low cost* pieces of some computers I've put it on, and the software that came with my $250 cd burner (also purchased in April - CD Creator 4) is also unusable (the only real loss I have with it - I can only use the built in CD burning functions right now) but I've had about 4 stops (when the system halts, dumps memory to the HD and reboots because of some hardware or software issue) in this entire time, and I only reboot when I install software (which was something that was supposed to be fixed, but oh well)
Having said that, I should also say that I'm not going to upgrade the office I work for. Sure, the benefits would be great, but we can't afford the $99 per computer when win98 works for us. Even if we had crashes on each computer daily, we still wouldn't save enough time and money to make up for the cost of the upgrade to the home version, nevermind professional. So it's installed on one computer which has to be rock solid - it's the one I dial into when I'm away from work (I work at home 3 of 5 days a week) and also serves a simple PHP/APACHE site which shows some MS access database information, but isn't worth a full blown server.
So the only thing against it is the 'MS Tax' and the only thing you're getting for that money is the stability we all should have gotten 10 years ago from MS.
-Adam
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:2)
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:1)
Microsoft's Remote Assistance is just Microsoft's Terminal Server, with a few adjustments to prevent multiple concurrent users. It's a well proven bit of software that's been used since Windows NT 4, and is used by other software vendors (namely Citrix) for their thin-client products. It uses the RDP protocol. Read up on it, very interesting technology.
CD Creator 4 is also unusable
Microsoft released about a week ago updates to Windows XP that include compatability for EZ CD Creator 4. If you go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com, it will automatically be selected for installation.
Just a few things to chew on.
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:1)
Cool! Now I can uninstall that w@r3zed Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum that I had to "upgrade" a relative's computer with. He purchased a new CD-ROM drive after the release of XP, and it came bundled with the unusable version 4. Do you think Roxio had a free or nominally priced upgrade? Yeah, right. So I had to turn to Usenet to get him what he had already paid for.
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:1)
I don't know if it applies to Windows XP, but beware!
Re:My eXPerience with it (Score:1)
Zero Use at My Client Site (Score:2, Interesting)
The corporate PCs stay at one operating system from the moment the leased PC is placed on the users' desk until the PC goes off lease. Upgrades to existing PCs are rare and hard to acquire, with extra memory being about the only thing you can get. And even then, they __lease__ the RAM modules (dumb dumb dumb).
There is still a large deployment of Windows 95, and of Windows NT. Maybe 10% of the corporate desktops are Windows 2000 -- but I think the number is closer to 5%. (roughly 75,000 user population) The software deployment I'm involved in drew protest howls from locations that have Windows 95 on Pentium 100's with 32MB of RAM.
Can't put XP on those babies.
No 'eXPerience' yet, thanks anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
We've sworn off Windows XP for at least 12 months.
No matter what the Microsoft marketing says about XP Professional being the client of choice for Windows 2000 Server, there is no reason to move away from the (relatively) proven Windows 2000 Professional. The supposed 'benefits' (updated GUI that the majority turn off, a few apps, and a whole bunch of Passport crap) are not justified by the issues introduced with the 'upgrade'.
The little we have actually dealt with it in a work environment (smaller clients that have set up their own computers) have been nothing but trouble. Callouts because they can't activate it themselves. Yes, it's a three-click operation, but some of these people are scared of the computers enough, let alone when the operating system they have paid for decides not to work anymore. Software (both obscure and not) that has decided not to work, even between 2000 and XP. It's hard to explain "Well, your new computer that you've bought can't do that. At all."
So, supporting small clients is harder, and no-one in their right mind rolls out a two month old unproven OS for large clients. We are using Windows 2000 now, and will be for the next 12 months.
Perhaps we'll look at XP Professional again in 2003...
Re:No 'eXPerience' yet, thanks anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
I haven't turned off the new interface, and I enjoy it. A lot of people complain, but it was the same when Microsoft upgraded the interface from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. It just takes some getting used to.
I've turned off remote assistance and I have both their included firewall and Zone Alarm running.
I'm indifferent to the integration of the Passport materials, and I'm certainly not loading my financial information into Passport, but Microsoft has obviously put a lot of thought into trying to integrate the network and PC into a single cohesive unit. Sun said originally "The Network is the Computer" but Microsoft has really started to make that vision a reality, like it or not.
And as far as running software, I haven't had any problems, not even running old Windows 95 games that wouldn't run on 2000.
I'm very happy with Windows XP and glad I made the switch.
Re:No 'eXPerience' yet, thanks anyway (Score:2)
6 months ago, you would have said that Windows 2000 was an unproven platform an NT 4 was a safe bet.
Re:No 'eXPerience' yet, thanks anyway (Score:2)
We've been using Windows 2000 since late 2000. And it is a step beyond NT 4.0, and well worth the update. We wouldn't rollout an NT4 setup anymore.
Windows XP Pro, however, has no benifits over Windows 2000 Pro in a corporate situation, requires a more powerful system, and offers virtually nothing of practial use that Win2000 Pro doesn't. There is no real benifit in 'rushing' the use of XP over 2000.
The general rule of thumb with Microsoft stuff (which you'd probably have heard) is to at least wait for the first service pack. Perhaps we'll look at XP a bit more then...
Oh, and for the record, I do NT/2000 stuff because it's my job. I'm still at uni, and this is a good job to get industry experence with. I don't think it's the greatest operating system for every situation however...
Re:No 'eXPerience' yet, thanks anyway (Score:2)
At my job, our NT group supports about 50,000 users spread over about 850 sites, with skillsets ranging from Software Engineers to contract clerks.
Currently the only RC solution that meets our needs is Tivoli Remote Control (because it supports distributed security) Tivoli uses an PcAnywhere-like remote control service that does not perform nearly as well as the RDP service in windows xp.
I don't think the service pack stuff really counts here either. Windows XP is more like Windows 2000.5 than a new OS. As long as IE 6 doesn't break any intranet apps, there isn't an overwhelming reason to avoid it.
Re:No 'eXPerience' yet, thanks anyway (Score:1)
Well, I've gotten used to the new look, but... (Score:2)
At my office the usual response from our 'Wintel' group is, "We'll deploy it once they release Service Pack 2."
I also found out that, althgough there are XP 'drivers' available for many wireless cards, because of the wireless integration in XP, they don't work so good. It seems that companies have just updated their drivers, but with all the built-in configuration abilities of XP, they'll need to write _new_ drivers, not just update old ones.
But I guess XP is the windows future. Now, if Microsoft would just release a Remote Desktop Client with 128-bit encryption for linux, I'll be all set! Yeah, and we'll all be living on Mars by then!
Re:Well, I've gotten used to the new look, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well, I've gotten used to the new look, but... (Score:2, Informative)
Geez I've had great experiences (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I am still concerned, Windows still wins in the desktop war.
Re:Geez I've had great experiences (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Geez I've had great experiences (Score:1)
XP is only an update of 2000 and it is not a new.. (Score:1, Redundant)
There was NT3.0, then 3.5 then 4.0 then 2000 (5.0) then XP (5.5). So as you can see, XP is only a small update.
Re:XP is only an update of 2000 and it is not a ne (Score:1)
Re:XP is only an update of 2000 and it is not a ne (Score:1)
Correct version numbers (Score:2)
it's not that great (Score:5, Informative)
I have installed it clean on a machine I have at home and I am not all that impressed with it. I use Yahoo Messenger a lot, and I have frequent hard system lock ups, where I have to power cycle the box. I also have a disk on the same box with 2K on it and I don't have the same problem, even though I use Yahoo Messenger about the same under both OSs. So my experience has been that XP is *less* stable than 2K.
Re:it's not that great (Score:2, Insightful)
User - "my computer keeps locking up on me..."
Windows tech - "It's probably some bad hardware or you have it setup wrong"
Win 95:
User - "my computer keeps locking up on me..."
Windows tech - "It's probably some bad hardware or you have it setup wrong"
Win NT:
User - "my computer keeps locking up on me..."
Windows tech - "It's probably some bad hardware or you have it setup wrong"
Win 2000:
User - "my computer keeps locking up on me..."
Windows tech - "It's probably some bad hardware or you have it setup wrong"
Win XP:
User - "my computer keeps locking up on me..."
Windows tech - "It's probably some bad hardware or you have it setup wrong"
I mean really... sure they've come a long way but I swear that the MS pundits are just as bad or ever worse than the *nix pundits when it comes to denial...
Re:it's not that great (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:it's not that great (Score:1)
Re:it's not that great (Score:1)
Ha! Me too. I'm still NT and *nix on my desktop...
Been forced, but havn't had any problems. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Been forced, but havn't had any problems. (Score:2)
Re:Xp Problems (Score:1)
Given that hardware, it better be fast and responsive. Given time, I'm sure someone will create enough bloat to slow it down.
Windows XP is good! (Score:1, Interesting)
slow, not for novell networks (Score:2, Informative)
Re:slow, not for novell networks (Score:2, Interesting)
The destruction of a competitors software...
By taking Novell out and putting M$ in, they win.
Did you consider Samba?
Re:slow, not for novell networks (Score:2, Informative)
The proper Novell Client for XP is available from http://download.novell.com/sdMain.jsp
Re:slow, not for novell networks (Score:1)
Client hardware used: Dell OptiPlex GX1 (PIII-500, 128MB RAM, 6GB HD).
This machine also had a test of Office XP Standard installed on it, and the machine seemed to be reasonably responsive (you could work on it without noticeable slowdowns), although I think this setup would definitely benefit from extra 128MB RAM.
News Break: Final version of Client 4.82 for WinXP has been released on 12/12/01. You can download it here:
http://download.novell.com/sdMain.jsp
Staying with 2000 (Score:2, Informative)
1) XP requires too much CPU and memory.
2) XP devices drivers don't work for my wireless cards.
3) I did not have patience to get Zone Alarm over the hurdles.
Win2k handles desktop very well for admins and
managers. The techs tend to run RedHat or Mandrake or Solaris.
Of course, none of our servers run any variety of Windows, nor ever will. I'd rather spend time on
bizdev than in court with ex-customers!
PC-Chips 810 LMR mobo Doesn't Work (Score:1)
No problem except that the SIS900 ethernet controller on the 810 doesn't have an XP driver. Networking is a must for the project we're developing. I've got five identical test machines that I can't put XP on. There's a spending freeze till the end of the year thanks to the crappy economy and I have to rob production machines to build an XP compatible box. Doh!
You'll note of course that this isn't so much XP's fault as mine for relying on one hardware config for testing.
'Course a frickin' SIS900 driver would be nice.
Re:PC-Chips 810 LMR mobo Doesn't Work (Score:2)
http://www.sis.com/support/driver/630lan.htm [sis.com]
Doesn't work as advertised (Score:4, Funny)
So far we've had three executives upgrade for the Microsoft Personal Flight(tm) feature. Unforunately, all three have plummeted to their death when leaping from the building. Microsoft claims that will be fixed in SP2. In the mean time, we're hiring to fill their positions.
The best Windows, but not the best OS (Score:3, Interesting)
I see plenty of features with which Microsoft has gone overkill. For example, they store a backup of all your system DLLs in \windows\system32\dllcache (assuming you have the default installation path set). This includes files for Internet Explorer, Movie Maker and Messenger. It also installs MSN Explorer by default, and you must manually remove it from your system through the control panel.
One of the biggest difficulties with migrating down to Windows XP is using old applications. Most work, though I do a lot of Windows CE development, and their development tools don't work. ActiveSync seems to go crazy, and won't establish a connection with the eMbedded Tools IDE. So much for backwards compatibility. Device connectability has always been a problem (with ActiveSync and the embedded development tools) but it's even worse on XP.
The memory footprint is huge - don't bother running it on any less than 128MB of RAM.
The Remote Assistance tool is reminiscent of *nix X Server/Client interface. I also find XP more stable than Windows 2000. You shouldn't be misled by the migration from Windows ME to Windows XP. They're designed under entirely different code bases. I think that may be the reason why Microsoft chose to rename NT5 to Windows 2000, to eliminate the first-glance impression that 9x and NT are two entirely different operating systems - which they are, but not for the benefit of marketing.
So much for open competition. If you have MSN Messenger on your system (ie: you haven't found a way to delete it), Outlook and Internet Explorer will launch it automatically. You must exit these two apps before you can close MSN Messenger. Alternatively, you can read-protect the file through the NTFS security features to prevent even the system from accessing it.
Microsoft also wants to dictate where you should store your files. If you save a web picture to a directory outside of your "My Documents\My Pictures" folder, this will be the default path until you re-open Internet Explorer. Then you have to navigate out of "My Documents\My Pictures" yet again. So much for the intelligent operating system.
I think the keenest feature is the font smoothing - You can enable ClearType font smoothing from the desktop settings panel, and fonts will look oh-so-crisp on laptop displays - even regular CRTs.
And
SO... if you've been stuck with Windows ME, it's time for an upgrade. For all intents and purposes, XP still seems like the next step forward in the NT-branch of Windows OS's. If you're happy with Windows 2000, stick with that. Don't give up your limited freedom of choice by installing XP and having it force Internet Explorer, Messenger and Movie Maker on you. If you're thinking of going to Windows XP for its user interface configurability, don't bother. It comes with only the new "XP" theme, and the old Windows 2000 theme. You have to buy Plus! to get any more, and even then, there are only 4 cheesy themes that come with it.
Bottom line - if it works, don't fix it.
Don't by an X-Box either [/me runs for cover].
Re:The best Windows, but not the best OS (Score:1)
Wonderful XP experience!! (Score:1)
That being said, I couldn't be happier with M$'s WinXP release. An unintended consequence is making my win2k life much more pleasant. I have and oldish machine at home which started its life as a win98 box. I upgraded to win2k soon after it was released for stability reasons etc... But had a nagging problem with third party driver support for my older hardware. Since the user base for win2k was small in comparison to Win98/WinME, and win2k was supposed to be for office use hardware manufactures could get away with not releasing new drivers for old hardware. Since WinXP's release, all of a sudden; there appeared new XP drivers for a lot of the old unsupported hardware. I instead these drivers for win2k and all of them have worked so far. I would recommend that anyone who has unsupported win2k hardware, check the manufacture's site to see if they are releasing XP drivers. If so you may be able to revive some of your old hardware from your pile of outdated computer part.
XP is smooth (Score:3, Interesting)
My very vanilla config:
Intel 866EB
512MB RAM
10GB storage on 2 older UDMA drives (I know I should upgrade since drives are so cheap, but if it ain't broken...)
52x CDROM
Voodoo3 3k
Viewsonic 17"
NetGear 10/100 NIC + DSL
HP 5L parallel port
When I installed XP it properly detected and installed ALL of my devices (including my printer and my NIC/DSL connection) the very first time. From the first time it booted after installing, everything worked. I remember having to struggle to get devices (printers, NICs and modems most notably) to work under NT4, and I was thrilled to bits not to have to go through that circle of hell again. XP just works.
When my wife got a laptop and wanted to use the printer from her machine via our home LAN, all I had to do was click "share printer" and magically she can print from her WinME laptop. XP just works. I didn't have to fiddle with any config files in
The last time I rebooted my XP machine was when the power went out about a month ago. I have had zero systems problems since installing XP.
I'm not saying that XP is better than Linux, or that every company should run out and upgrade, but I am saying that I have had a significantly lower cost of administration and higher reliability on my home development machine with windows XP than with any other OS I've ever used. And yes, I've used Mandrake 6.0 and RH 7.0 distros, and yes, they did finally work once I read many howtos and books. JWZ said it best [jwz.org]: "Linux is free if your time has no value."
In related news... (Score:1)
I know UNIX far better than Windows, so a GNU/Linux system has a "significantly lower cost of administration" for me.
No shit.
Deployment of XP. (Score:2)
Both operating systems will probably be installed on the "Internet Stations" and other non-critical student systems in the next few months just to test the reaction. But a full migration won't even be discussed until at least summertime, which means implemented at the beginning of 2003.
There's a lot of institutional inertia, you know?
--saint
XP breaks my Group Policies - no backwards compat (Score:5, Informative)
Re:XP breaks my Group Policies - no backwards comp (Score:1)
Strange, as it's not quite my (uhm) experience. Actually everything but the trashcan can be removed.
Re:XP breaks my Group Policies - no backwards comp (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:XP stole my goldfish, and unplugged my TV. (Score:1)
Given all the negatives, that you describe, it sounds like a rather good idea and a lot safer to stick with Linux.
XP (Score:1, Interesting)
I am running XP on a PC at home and we run Win2K Pro at work. XP is a huge step up from Win 9x but not so much from Win2K. It seems to be Win2K + new features such as remote control + support for DOS and Win9x software such as games.
In a business setting I'd say a standardized OS environment is much more important than any new XP features. I'd hold off on XP until I was ready to move every desktop to that OS. Standardization is an accepted best practice in IT administration.
Problems with XP (Score:1)
They're stealing our memes!
Working Great! (Score:2)
I'm not deploying it at work until we do more application testing with it, but if the apps work I wouldn't hesitate at all.
It really is good stuff.
Compatibility Problems (Score:1)
If I had some extra time I would move back to 2000 until XP matures a little more, although it is considered Windows 5.1.
XP Upgrade (Score:1)
An upgrading eXPerience gone terribly wrong.... (Score:5, Interesting)
----
Initially we installed XP on workstations within an NT 4.0 domain and had no
problems other than mapping network printers was not straight forward. If
we used the Add Printer Wizard on the XP workstation, we could not see any
network printers. If we dragged and dropped a network printer from Windows
Explorer to the printers window, it would install - not a big deal we
thought, which is why we decided to move forward. However, when we tried to
convert our Windows 2000 network workstations, we started encountering
issues with the network trusts between the workstations and servers. One
minute the trust was there and the next it was gone and had to be manually
rebuilt. Also, we were constantly getting error messages that the
workstation time and the server time could not be synched so network logons
were denied, At one point the local admin could not logon locally because of
this time issue. Share permissions would drop randomly and had to be
re-established. User logon scripts would not run. Network printers would
not map correctly and in some cases, workstations could not even see a
network printer that was visible to other workstations. We tried connecting
via a Workgroup instead of a Domain and that almost worked but we would have
to manually create network share connections for each workstation and we
never could get a network printer to work this way. XP also would not allow
our Adaptec CD burning software to run - it outright disabled it after it
blue-screened twice on boot up and it's built in burning software just plain
did not work at all. There is no patch for Partition Magic 6.0 (which we
just upgraded to use with Windows 2000) so we had to purchase 7.0 ( we have
some dual boot machines). XP would not recognize our scanners, mind you
they are 3 years old. Another big thing that concerned me was, on a couple
of machines we turned on automatic update and noticed that just about every
day, Microsoft released patches.
So after spending 3 days converting to XP we spent another 3 days converting
back.
While I do not profess to be an O/S expert, I think I'm going to wait for a
while. In my opinion this is not a step forward from Windows 2000 yet
however it is a diagonal step from Windows 9X to a unified code base. My
daughters are using it on their home computers and it works well for them.
I still have it on my laptop and as long as it stays away from a network - I
kind of like it.
Re:An upgrading eXPerience gone terribly wrong.... (Score:1)
Better NotePad (Score:1)
Re:Better NotePad (Score:1)
Windows XP (Score:1)
1. Filesharing sux. WinXP-WinXP sharing almost always fail. I do not understand why.
2. GUI can be buggy at taskbar sometimes.
(3. Default skin uses too much space.)
4. The control panel just has TOO many buttons to click. Too user-friendly.
GOOD
1. I like it.
2. It has many nice features that makes general use more logical.
3. It's very good to remote control (terminal services included even in winxp pro).
4. All my games work.
Re:Windows XP (Score:1)
Do you accounts have passwords? If not, XP's new default is to prevent network logins with these accounts and file sharing fails.
You can play around in the local security policy
Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security options -> Accounts : limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only.
set this option to disabled
performance (Score:1)
Most unexpectedly, my network throughput is dramatically better. A simple search on our sourcesafe tree, for example, used to take 15 minutes. Now it takes 2 or 3. Other tasks are similarly improved. I can't say for sure why.
As far as Microsoft's theme limitations, a quick trip to http://www.themexp.org to get style xp and I've been playing around with themes WITHOUT getting the cheezy plus pack.
New Meanings for XP (Score:1)
Can you think of any more?
hmm? what? (Score:2, Interesting)
It turns out that it's RH 7.2, but the important point is that it could have been freebsd 4.4, win2k, winxp or some flav. of linux. I have all these systems on various computers at home and they all have a decent web-browser with AA fonts (konqueror or ie6), the gui programming whatsit REBOLView and a media player that supports FLAC (xmms or winamp).
The only thing that would require using a specific os (at least for me at the moment) would be games, for which I would need a flav. of Windows, but then I have WinXP installed on one certain computer anyway and the reason is that it's the fastest processor, best gfx card etc.
I find it interesting now that I think about it; It seems that if you fall into the
Lots of unix things are available for Win32: vi, emacs, the gimp, bash, plus you have all the things that are available for multiple platforms e.g. REBOL, java, clisp and lots of my other fave. programming languages, plus all the great programming libs: readline, gc, regexp etc.
Then you have the other things like the fact that KDE is constantly trying to become Windows in look and feel, ssh and telnet work in both Windows and unix and both VNC and X-clients work anywhere
Honestly, is it any wonder that I find it hard to tell which operating system I am in any more ?
The upshot of this is that for a large group of people the os is irrelevant and they can either pay for Windows or have a flav. of unix for free if they are willing to spend a little more time setting it up. (Don't bother flaming me for that- it's just my experience- your distribution may vary).
graspee
in redhat 7.2
(apparently)
XP In the workplace, XP in my home (Score:1)
In the home, I have XP on my machine and am thouroughly impressed. I don't hate microsoft just for the purpose of having something to post about on slashdot. XP has really moved me back into Windows from Linux. I still use Linux, and think that GNOME is a great interface, but the interface on XP is immaculate. Before XP, I thought Mac OS X was the perfect interface, but this even beats the Mac at its own game.
The file navigation on the new explorer is fantastic. The organization of my pics and movies is very useful, and gadgets like that rarely impress me. I havent ever seen this crash, and that's something I can't boast about any other OS I have used.
In conclusion, Go Linux Go, but watch out, Goliath just got a whole lot more attractive and friendly.
Mac OS X, anyone? (Score:1)
I gotta say though - it's not nearly as slick and intuitive. Not by a long shot
I couldn't compare either in terms of stability. Havn't used them that much. Although my friend with the Mac has never complained of stability issues. The Windows XPers have only said it's more stable than previous releases, to which I replied "It doesn't take much."
GeForce2 MX (200|400) & WindowsXP install conf (Score:1)
The installer will run normally, load all the drivers, then freeze. nothing works, no work-around besides using another card.
This forum (http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?catid
Macros
Re:GeForce2 MX (200|400) & WindowsXP install c (Score:1)