Rachel Mae
Creature of Chaos
Level: 141
   
Posts: 465/5929
EXP: 33608576
For next: 511438
Since: 07-03-07
Pronouns: she/her
From: Foxglen
Since last post: 22 days
Last activity: 1 day
|
|
Originally posted by Imajin
I've still wondered what the great improvement of Windows XP over Windows 2000 is, myself 
Almost nothing.
Windows 2000 = version 5.0
Windows XP = version 5.1
Honestly, XP is little more than 2000 with a few (mostly unnecessary) added features; they're nearly the same under the hood. It uses the same driver model and runs nearly all the same software. Unfortunately, many companies have begun artificially removing support for 2K from their drivers and programs, and this has forced a lot of people to upgrade, myself included (ATI's Catalyst driver packages suddenly stopped installing in 2K several versions ago, and nobody seems to know or care why).
I'd probably still be running 2K right now if it weren't for ATI's shenanigans. 
____________________
|
|  |
|
chungy
Member
Level: 31
Posts: 132/174
EXP: 168466
For next: 16897
Since: 08-04-07
Since last post: 14.1 years
Last activity: 13.9 years
|
|
Originally posted by Metal_Man88
Therefore until they have serious competition (Read: Copyright-violating Linux OS which can run Windows programs) I don't see them shaping up any time soon. Except they do seem to care more about Business customers. :p
uhh.... why does it have to be copyright-violating? There's already a perfectly legal project to run Windows software on Linux. |
Post 109/1311 ( 42 days),
online 2 days ago
|
|
 Not to mention all the stuff that requires SP2, like Visual Studio 2005 when I tried it ...
2000 and XP were only 1-2 years apart too, so it's more like they rushed to make a newbie-friendly version of Windows NT to forget ME's failure 
This is most of the changes I can think of between 2000 and XP (before SP1/SP2):
- Fisher-Price look (and unless you hack uxtheme.dll, it's all you get, although Media Center later improved it a bit)
- ClearType antialiasing (which is actually a good thing, sure beats Windows 98's)
- Support for 32bit icons with transparency, and new Windows icons (but I liked Windows 2000's better ...)
- User login screen, fast switching (makes it somewhat easier if you do have multiple user accounts, useless otherwise and can be disabled)
- The taskbar shows the full date and day of week if big enough
- New Start menu (with which I always got lost, and it removes My Computer from the desktop, so screw that)
- The Start menu settings dialog has new sample pictures (as a side effect, explorer.exe is about 4x bigger, really nice)
- Searching now greets you with a dog that wastes your time with several useless steps (but delete C:\windows\srchasst and you're back to Windows 2000's nice and simple Search)
- Regedit doubled in size
- More default drivers than ever, 95% of which end up being useless
- More bloat and services enabled by default (that's always a new feature)
Give me ClearType and XP SP2's application/driver support in Windows 2000 and I'd switch back to that anytime as well 
____________________
| 
#72 |
|
Rachel Mae
Creature of Chaos
Level: 141
Posts: 468/5929
EXP: 33608576
For next: 511438
Since: 07-03-07
Pronouns: she/her
From: Foxglen
Since last post: 22 days
Last activity: 1 day
|
|
I also tend to experience weird GUI glitches in XP that weren't present in 2000, like disappearing menus in emulators (the menu items only reappear after I mouse over them), selection boxes "sticking" in PSP, and occasional menu bar discoloration and/or text flickering in various other programs. It's rather bizarre and annoying.
On the plus side, GIF Animator works again.
____________________
|
| |
|
Teconmoon
Catgirl
User 275
Level: 84
Posts: 248/1772
EXP: 5452754
For next: 209198
Since: 09-17-07
From: Edmonds, WA
Since last post: 12.5 years
Last activity: 12.5 years
|
| Posted on 01-22-08 01:36:51 AM (last edited by teconmoon at 01-21-08 10:37 PM) |
Link | Quote
| |
Wouldn't this make things worse for Microsoft? If people have heard bad things about Vista and have heard that XP is better, and they aren't being allowed to purchase it, where does that lead?
PIRACY. It would be the only way to obtain XP unless you got it off eBay or something.
Also, wouldn't that make their work on service pack 3 pretty worthless? |
Rachel Mae
Creature of Chaos
Level: 141
Posts: 469/5929
EXP: 33608576
For next: 511438
Since: 07-03-07
Pronouns: she/her
From: Foxglen
Since last post: 22 days
Last activity: 1 day
|
|
Originally posted by teconmoon
Wouldn't this make things worse for Microsoft? If people have heard bad things about Vista and have heard that XP is better, and they aren't being allowed to purchase it, where does that lead?
Uh...last I checked, Windows XP was still very much available to purchase. In fact, it recently went up in price (probably to make Vista a more appealing purchase).
____________________
|
| |
|
chungy
Member
Level: 31
Posts: 133/174
EXP: 168466
For next: 16897
Since: 08-04-07
Since last post: 14.1 years
Last activity: 13.9 years
|
|
Originally posted by Guy54123
Uh...last I checked, Windows XP was still very much available to purchase. In fact, it recently went up in price (probably to make Vista a more appealing purchase).
Not surprising, they pulled the same stunt on Windows 95 when Win98 had a very poor adoption rate as well. |
MathOnNapkins
Member
Level: 14
Posts: 4/29
EXP: 11318
For next: 1753
Since: 12-17-07
Since last post: 11.6 years
Last activity: 10.8 years
|
|
Originally posted by Guy54123
I also tend to experience weird GUI glitches in XP that weren't present in 2000, like disappearing menus in emulators (the menu items only reappear after I mouse over them),
I can't really explain why that wouldn't happen in Win2k ( it does in Win98 for some apps), but my gut tells me that it happening is not really the OS's fault. If the program allocates too many GDI resources (drawing surfaces, bitmaps, brushes, menus, etc.) that will happen. It's analogous to a real memory leak, except it won't cause a system crash. It just means the application is not freeing resources after it's done using them, which is usually a function call or two. This is extraordinarily easy to do if your program does anything more than a basic interface. |
Hiryuu
Level: 207
Posts: 2130/14435
EXP: 127639626
For next: 2144528
Since: 07-06-07
Since last post: 11.8 years
Last activity: 11.7 years
|
| Posted on 01-23-08 08:42:17 PM (last edited by Hiryuu at 01-23-08 05:42 PM) |
Link | Quote
| |
Last I checked (around the time my dual-core was built) the price shot so high that XP Pro cost ~300 dollars for a single copy. This was at Office Depot, I believe. Home cost ~200 bucks.
Of course, TigerDirect and decent places sell it a lot less than that...but I still think our business chips in 150 dollars or so per copy and we do use that OS quite a bit on all of the comps here that get shipped out to customers (with Windows/Microsoft updates already completed, etc., as well).
____________________
|  |
| |
|
Eon
Hammer Brother
MLB
Level: 68
Posts: 254/1085
EXP: 2626400
For next: 102400
Since: 07-22-07
Since last post: 311 days
Last activity: 131 days
|
| Posted on 01-24-08 10:57:03 PM (last edited by Eon at 01-24-08 08:00 PM) |
Link | Quote
| |
 | | Windows 2000 Professional is the greatest operating system ever created.
But no... Instead of marketing it for the consumer audience, they use its code to make XP by shoehorning in a lot of multimedia garbage like what bogged down 98 (which was slower and more buggy than 95 IMHO).
Oddly enough. I never bought XP. I'd done so for Vista, then didn't enjoy it. So my purchased Vista is on the spare computer, and XP cracked to think it's "legit" on my main one.
Also I've not once had any sort of problem whatsoever running ME. Since I couldn't get it to install.
____________________
 | |  |
|
Deleted User
Collection of nobodies
|
|
Originally posted by Eon
Also I've not once had any sort of problem whatsoever running ME. Since I couldn't get it to install.
I suppose that makes you one of the lucky two. 
____________________
===================
[Posted by NightKev]
|
- 
- 
