|
|||
|
Back to the Forum Archives I have been fooled more than once by quick reports in computer journals. According to those, every new version of Windows that came out was the best thing since inside plumbing. Then, a few weeks later, they had to begin reporting the bugs. Of course these bug reports made no reference to the original glowing reports by the same Magazine. I don't want to do that. If I had reported a few days after the installation, I would have given a completely positive report. Now I cannot. First the good news. I can report some improvements. The reason I bought XP is it does support disk sizes larger that 32 GB. The silliness about this is they did not create a dynamic allocation table to allow unlimited disk size. Instead they again created a fixed table, so the limit is simply increased to a larger number. They probably think a limit in the terabytes will never be exceeded. Sure! That's what they thought when the put the limit at 32 GB. Another good thing is the help files are somewhat improved. Some of them actually contain useful information. One that was particularly useful to me was the one that helped me discover what they did with fdisk. Fdisk is a DOS based program for configuring hard drives. It is still there but they renamed it to Diskpart. They also cleaned it up slightly. It can now be run from the command line prompt under Windows. You no longer have to reboot and revert to DOS to use it. The price of this improved help is the annoying internet attempts. Quite often, when I attempt to access help, Windows just slops an internet logon screen up there in my face. Then I must exit that before I can go on. I don't know why it happens or what causes it. It seems almost random. It is very annoying. I must also say that XP is more stable than any other version of Windows I have tried. It has only crashed once since I installed it more than six months ago. Of course, there is a penalty for this. It takes the form of mysterious failures with some programs. They just mysteriously quit working. Here is one example. I install Delorme's Streets and also their Map'n'Go software. Both programs worked flawlessly when I installed them. The next day, I booted up and neither program would run. When I tried to launch them, they put up a temporary splash screen then exited. I tried several times to reinstall these programs. I even went so far as to take Delorme's technical advice. I suppressed everything except system.ini, rebooted, and reinstalled. The same thing happened. The programs worked until I rebooted. I must say that Microsoft may not be the only culprit here. I appealed to Delorme's technical support. To the extent possible in their scripted input forms, I described the problem and asked for help. What I got back was an e-mail that said, in effect: Our software has been tested under Windows XP and it works. If you are having a problem it is someone else's fault, probably yours. Tell us what you are doing wrong. Those are not the exact words of the message, but they are the gist of the response. I solved that problem by putting the Delorme software on a Windows Me machine where it works fine. That is probably the last Delorme software I will buy. With them I have a choice. Just for a lark then, I bought Microsoft's Streets & Trips. For sure, it worked just fine under Windows XP. More on this kind of stuff below. There is another good thing that results from large disk support. Now I can install CDs on the hard drive and run them from there. Of course, the programs run much faster from the hard drive than they did from CD. My old plan was to move all of my SCSI CD drives to an old computer on my network and use it as a CD server. Now I will not need a CD server. To be sure there were a few old DOS based CD programs that would not run from the hard drive. I just threw them out. If I need that stuff, I'll get new ones which will work from the hard drive. This also means I don't need any SCSI device cards and cables anymore. That stuff worked but it was stone ugly. It was not just one standard, but a hodgepodge of different standards. It was always an adventure trying to figure out which SCSI card and cables to purchase for which div ice. SCSI will go the way of the 5 & 1/4 inch floppy. That's all of the good stuff I know about. Now for the rest of the crap. My main beef is the obnoxious intrusiveness of Microsoft. They have carried it to a new level with XP. After installing XP, I got repeated warning messages when I booted. They said the software would fail in a few days unless I asked Microsoft's permission to use it. This is software I bought and paid for. Please don't give me that dishonest excuse that I only bought a license. That is irrelevant. I paid for something, then I had to ask permission to use it. I finally let Microsoft access my computer. Sure, they said I could do it with a phone call, but I have tried to call Microsoft before. I won't even let honest people put me on hold, especially not for several hours. So they accessed my machine and got information about me. Who knows how they will use it? So far as I'm concerned, considering their record, their promises of confidentiality are empty mouthings. About failures, another program that failed to work under XP was the Nero CD creation software. It came with the Yamaha CD-RW drive I bought. Similar to the Delorme debacle, I installed the software and it worked. Later, after a restart, I launched the program and got an error message. It said the files had been corrupted and I would have to reinstall. Again I tried several times. Enough of that. I solved the problem by buying and installing the Roxio Easy CD Creator. It works okay. About Internet Explorer, it will not download pdf files from the internet and I don't know why. XP came with Internet Explorer (version6.0.26 etcetera). It just shuts down and exits, with absolutely no explanation, whenever I try to download a PDF file. There is no message, no error, nothing. It just exits. I have tried it several times. I know it is not the sites because I can get the files on my 98 machine using Explorer 5.00 etcetera. I have tried adjusting all of the settings I can find and version 6 just does not work. Now lets talk about in your face and limbo land. This has happened with several programs but the biggest offender is Microsoft's Encarta. Sometimes when I launch Encarta it slops that Dial up Logon screen in my face. I have to exit that before I can go on. Then there is a Welcome to Club Encarta in my face. They want me to join some internet service. I have to exit that before I can go on. Finally, I can enter a search phrase or word and click on find "the word". Quite often when I do that the program goes into limbo land. It gives me the hourglass and starts searching and never stops. The system does not crash and I can click on the X for exit. When I do, I get a "This program is not responding" dialog window. So, I click on end now. Now here is the cute part. The program exits. Great. Then I get another dialog window. "You choose to exit the nonresponsive program Microsoft Encarta 2003. Please tell Microsoft about this problem. We have created an error report.... etcetera. I am offered the option of sending the report or not. If I click on send, XP logs on to the internet and sends my computer data to Microsoft. I did it once just to make sure. I solved this problem by buying and installing Encyclopedia Britannica. It is much superior to Encarta and it has never gone into limbo land. Also, there is an online service I can access, but they do not try to force me into it. There is a place I can click to go on line. That's all. I did not blow Encarta off, but I do not use it anymore. Finally, very often when I am on the internet, Microsoft pops a little widow in my face insisting that I download the latest Windows updates. This is very annoying when I am concentrating on something else. I am not a web server. I am a Writer Publisher. When I am on the internet it is because I am doing research. I do not need and I deeply resent distractions of any kind. So here is my take. Working with Windows XP is a lot like cleaning restrooms. It is tedious, distasteful, and you don't know what you are going to come upon. It sucks and it pries. Microsoft is intrusive. there is way too much in your face stuff. All software companies are dishonest and obnoxious. Now, in addition, they are getting more intrusive. Leading that charge, of course, is Microsoft, but Adobe is close behind. Some Adobe products also pop a logon screen in my face when I launch the program. They offer to download the files I requested. The thing is, I never requested any files. My final conclusion on XP is, unless you need the large disk
support, stay with the poison you know. Having XP is not worth
putting up with the arrogance of Microsoft and the mysterious
glitches.
|