Ad said:
André Gulliksen wrote:
Now this is crux of the matter. you see we buy faster machines , so
things get done faster, we buy more memory, so the computer runs
smother. Then microsoft brings out windows Xp, which means we have to
buy faster machines again and more memory, so we can get the speed
back.
I dunno...
I'm running WinXP on a P3 (RAM=500Mb). It's going guns.
I do all sorts of graphic prepress work with, often having 16+ major
applications doing things simultaneously. It's been pretty fast and stable
for me.
Microsoft is not the only software publisher that does it, but they
are one of the worse.
You take a look at Adobe Acrobat reader, the last few versions have
got larger and larger and yet offer very little new.
Adobe has had to make a lot of additions to the whole Acrobat package (not
just Reader), in order to offer every other conceivable application a way to
make PDFs, etc. Even with Reader itself, you'd find a lot of capabilities
missing in earlier versions. Some improvements may not be outwardly
"visible", as they apply to the various extras the software has to have in
order to handle ordinary tasks (like opening a document) when dealing with
products from the other newer apps.
Office is another, realplayer, windows media player, messenger, yahoo
messenger.
I could go on.
It is just going around in circles, and you end up forever upgrading.
Are you saying you don't see anything different or added to these programs??
I think you're just knee-jerking on this one!
While it's true that these software makers must be in their glory with all
the revisions they get to market, it's not without cause. The whole
computer scene has been undergoing a very rapid, and steady growth. No
sooner do you get used to WordPerfect 3, when you find yourself having to
learn version 12, it seems! New capabilities seem to sprout up every month,
leading to new softwares, immediately generating the need for other existing
programs to interact with them. (Etc., etc., etc.)
The applications keep getting more sophisticated...new capabilities enter
the picture...even new kiinds of hardware. Naturally, the operating systems
have to progress along with them.
Windows 98 is very stable, well the SE version is.
Win98 was "self-defeating"!
It loaded too many drivers for no reason on boot, didn't manage memory
properly, and didn't like to clear its own cache when it should've. It
always eventually "wrote itself into a corner", the longer it was used.
When you first installed it, it was functional. As you continued to use it,
it got slower, displayed errors, and crashed more often.
I think Win2000 was a definite improvement.
I used that for almost 5 years with much success.
I got a computer here, that have been running windows 98 for 5 years,
never been reformatted and is on almost 24 hours a day. No problem
with it at all.
It would be interesting to know what kind of use this computer got!
That would be the 1st installation of Win98 I've ever heard of with that
kind of track record.
This I would agree with.
But this is the problem, always updating, since day one that XP was
produced and even now patches after patches.
This is something I wish could be addressed.
Even before WinXP, everybody started releasing software as soon as it was
written, and then patching all the rips afterward. I really think it would
be more constructive all around if they went back to doing a little more R&D
before releasing, applying the immediate fixes, and releasing a "fresh" new
version number. (Eg. Instead of releasing Acrobat 4, then patching and
upgrading until it reaches version 4.1.7, let's say, hang on to it, discover
the need for the fixes, and release version 4.1.7 as version 4. Any
subsequent "patches" could be held for a bit, and then, when enough
submissions have been made, release an "upgrade" to version 4.5. The next
"release" should be version 5.)
2000 is no good, it do not work with most of the software I have got,
anyway, 2000 is still based on NT, just like XP.
I've always found NTFS to be far more stable than FAT (which is what Win98
and backward were built on). And with NTFS, you have "permissions",
something that makes locking down the unit and controlling its access and
users a lot easier.
I think I will try 8 on this machine and see what it is like, I can
make a ghost copy of set up.
Not a bad idea!
Just remember, there will probably be the need of previous versions of
programs that you like to run, as many of the ones running on that XP setup
won't work in 98.
Personally, I think the more you know about all your software and operating
system, the less likely you are to want to trash it!
(Good luck!)
- Brent
