XP is back?

[Chewy]

I guess I missed it, dell downunder offers pretty full choices, USA site has more limited ones. Even a laptop or two.

[browneye]

They're still buying them where I work, just got a new optiplex 740, AMD dual core. XP sp2.
Seems like a decent machine, wouldn't mind having it at home.

[PurpleDemon]

It will be interesting to see if we get a special selection when XP Sp3 final is released.

That would be a great marketing technique for those that are not ready to upgrade or already hate Vista.

Looks like HP (compaq) is still offering a notebook loaded with XP Pro as well.

[Chewy]

makes you wonder what the return rate is on new vista computers?

No, I just want my money back!

[doctorhardware]

Chewy, when I was working at best buy, the vista computer return rate was close to 40%. Some of the universities would not support vista.

[Chewy]

almost every new vista computer I have seen recently is coming with 2 gigs of ram

finally found a way to make it run right

people are talking about 32 bit is being phased out and the next generation of OS will be based on 8 gigs of ram as the average

let's hope it runs on just 4 gigs for the upgraders

[browneye]

free utility condenses vista down to as small as 1.4gb

A Croatian college student has created a utility that installs a seriously stripped-down Windows Vista.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9060378&pageNumber=1

[Chewy]

if it's by the author of nlite then it's going to be a winner

[browneye]

nlite looks interesting, have you ever used it?

[Chewy]

oh yes, used it to slipstream a sp or two, added and removed some drivers, the sp's are easy, the drivers can get you in trouble, tried making a streamline xp installer and putting on an older computer, and then found out xp had the only driver available for that modem!

if you google you'll find some guides and hints but removing drivers is not a good idea

what I would like to do is add a wide range of sata drivers to replace the f6 floppies

[copyless]

I for one, never wanted to switch from XP, but I purchased a new computer a few weeks back and checked around and could basically find nothing but vista. So I bought one with vista home premium 64 bit, it came with 4GB 667mhz ram , which I set up and turned it on, let it boot, immediately turned it off and installed 8Gb 800mhz ram.

I really haven't had any problems with it, except a few learning curves with installing devices, since I had several devices that were not usb and it only has usb and 1394 connections. But once I got it down pat, I have been able to find drivers and cables to run everything and get them to work. Anyway so far I am very happy with the system and have no delay in it booting up, probably because I have 8gb ram and a quad processor.

[MilesAhead]

afa XP vs Vista other than turning off unnecessary services the biggest headache I've run into so far is trying to install VStudio 2008 Express. It goes right on my XP machine. Vista install craps out right at trying to install .NET 3.5 framework. So far I haven't found a work-around. Seems like Vista will let you disable stuff, like IIS, but it won't let you uninstall the thing!! Apparently it wants to update .NET but some security setting won't let it overwrite the .NET 3.0 that's already on. Really weird!! So I have to hang onto my XP machine until I can figure out how to get C# onto this thing!!

[Chewy]

right now there's a lot of issues with anti malware protection and vista, real time protection relies on drivers, so instead of being more secure, vista is turning out to be less protectable until the developers catch up, 64 bit is a mess

[MilesAhead]

right now there's a lot of issues with anti malware protection and vista, real time protection relies on drivers, so instead of being more secure, vista is turning out to be less protectable until the developers catch up, 64 bit is a mess

Yeah, the guy who wrote Sandboxie ain't doin' 64 bit no mo'. In SP 1 they're supposed to block kernel in memory alteration, that Sandboxie depends on.

I think I'm running into a bug with Windows Installer. Saw something on the web about if you run System Restore, Windows Installer gets messed up. I recall when this machine was fairly new I got into a problem where double-clicking a program asked me if I wanted to install it. I had to run the Installer Cleanup Utility to get rid of it. I guess now it says .NET 2.0 isn't on my machine, but if I try to put it on, it says it's not compatible with Vista. But when I try to install .NET 3.5 it says .NET 2.0 SP 1 won't install.
So it sounds like that's all hosed.

Looks like if I wanna' run C# on this machine I have to install XP first.
Maybe I'll just buy a used desk so I can keep this XP machine kickin' around
for awhile. My programs aren't that large anyway. Even on a relatively slow machine they build in less than 5 seconds.