I just got an email from my computer science professor telling me about the MSDN academic alliance. Basically we get the CD iso's for all the development tools (ie visual studio .NET, visio, and other such tools) plus the XP and win2k OS's for free. Now I have a question Ive been running win2k pro for a long time and its just great but Im kinda tempted to change to XP should I do this or would I be kicking myself if i did.

I haven't really herad anyone say anything actively positive about XP. At the same time, you'll be reinstalling in less than a year regardless of which MS OS you pick, so how wrong could you go?

XP Pros:
-Fast boot time
-Better error logging and notification of critical errors. Under 2000, a video driver lock resulted in no good info. Under XP, upon reboot I get a detailed log of what happened (typicially it got stuck in an infinite loop)
-Start Panal. It's grown on me
-Hiding of inactive icons near the clock
-Skinable interface
-Driver rollback
-MSVDM, giving me 4 virtual desktops, all from an MS tool

Cons:
-I personally spend a bit of time after a reload getting rid of Luna, uninstalling Zip Folders, MSN Messenger and Explorer, and turning search back into 2000 mode.
-Media Player 8 is built in, but 6.4 can be brought back
-Time also has to be spent tweaking the file sharing
-Connecting to another machine and getting a password prompt can be painful. It enjoys filling in a random domain from somewhere

Personally, I wouldn't pay for the upgrade from 2000 to XP. But for free, sure. It took me a while to grow into it, but I figure one way or another, MS will force me to it. But Windows is becoming less and less important in my day to day life, and my transition to OS X should be complete next year, except for gaming.

Ooooh how do you change searching back to the sane way? I hate XP searching...

Matthew

When all the XP reviews came out, the verdict that I saw across the board was that if you had Win98/ME, you should upgrade, but if you had Win2k, you shouldn't. Of course, if it's free, I don't know how those opinions would change, but I got the impression that there just wasn't enough reason for it.

Personally, I've been using Win2K for about 2 years and absolutely love it. I used XP every day at work over the summer and just didn't like the basic use of it. But I'm not the CS major here, I'm just speaking from my own amatuer perspective.

Oh, and I know it's a silly question, but do you know a guy named Rinaldo at GT? I believe he's a CS major, and he owns a large lizard, an iguana I think.

Hey Matt,
You want to download the PowerToys for XP. To Replace the Search Feature, you want to download the Tweak UI. I also enable my programs to group on the task bar when 2 or more windows from that program are open.

Someone else already mentioned PowerToys, but SP1 adds a feature to get the old style back, too.

uninstalling Zip Folders ... and turning search back into 2000 mode

whoa whoa whoa.

Do you mean as in not searching zips when doing a plain old file search? If so, please please please tell me how. I looked long and hard to get around this stupid arrangement. It takes somewhere around 3 hours to search my PC for a file at the moment.

If so is it the uninstall of zip folder support that actually fixes the problem?

edit: ooops I got so excited about this I replied before I even read the rest of the thread.

Yeah, how do you turn that Zip folder stuff off? I prefer to use Winzip.

Talk about timing...
I just installed XP on a spare computer yesterday to play with it. I'm already annoyed with some of the small things mentioned here - and now I won't have to bother searching too much to fix these nuisances (search feature, etc).

The first thing I did after installing was change that default Teletubbies Hill background.

If so is it the uninstall of zip folder support that actually fixes the problem?

Yep. I disable it since I install WinRAR almost instantly after I get a system up. Follow these directions to unregister the DLL responsible for ZIP folders. To ensure the thing stays disabled, delete the file from both the system32 directory, and the dllcache folder in system32.

And yes, as everyone else confirmed, the XP version of TweakUI allows you to change search to match 2000's look and feel. I advise everyone running XP to download it and go page by page through all the options. I also like it for the task bar managment. I like the grouping feature so that multple task bar entries from one program are all next to each other, but I despise when it makes them all merge into one icon on the taskpar (since there is no easy way to undo that), so Tweakl UI allows me to set that threshold to 99.

There is a ton or other tips over on the TweakXP site.

Speaking of WinZip, I'd been searching a long time for a replacement for it, seeing as how I didn't want to either spend $30 on it or use it unlicensed, and I finally found UltimateZip about six months ago. Not only is it a suitable free replacement, but I actually like it better. For one (silly) thing, when you use the context menu's extract to feature, it doesn't bring up the entire application, but just shows a progress dialog. There are a few other things that I also like better about it, but I think everyone should definitely check it out.

Edit: I just found out that the new version is all ad-ware-y, so nevermind, unless you can find a beta version somewhere.

Well I'm sitting here right now trying to upgrade my laptop from ME to XP. The utility it runs to check for compatibility says nothing about video driver problems, but says I may have audio problems. After the install I get audio, but once the XP logo goes away, the screen is black. I typred in my password and it starts Windows then I hear the tour guide audio, but no video... I've tried re-installing to no avail. I think I'm screwed...

May I just take this moment to reiterate... I hate XP.

I stick to WinAce. It was a little buggy when it first came out, but it's come a long way. The only thing I still need another archiver for is certain spanned RAR archives, when they are done in "filename.partX.rar" format, WinAce doesn't know what to do. But, I'm sure they will add that functionality sooner or later. Of course, if people would just archive things correctly from the beginning, it wouldn't be a problem. :P

May I just take this moment to reiterate... I hate XP.

*Seeing XP Hatin' Bandwagon driving by* Requesting a pick-up!
(A little 1942 reference thrown in there...)

I am now using my Winbloze Me recovery disk, bye-bye data...

LOL. I need to make some time to play soon....And I'll probally setup a small server over here at work during the evenings.

I use Winrar. Sure, there's a trial period, but it's one of those that never shuts the program down, and you don't get that annoying window every time you unzip something. it also supports more types of archives than winzip, and is faster as far as I can tell.

winRAR = the bomb

Why not both? Use Partition magic or some other program and carve out a few gigs of space and load it up. I'm running that way, and personally I like 2K better.

However I'm set in my ways, and it's probably just because I'm used to it.

I am now using my Winbloze Me recovery disk, bye-bye data...

Doh, there was a good chance that you could have gotten into Safe Mode on XP to fix it.

If it's not too late, pound away at the F8 key on boot, and try safe mode. If you get in, go into Device manager and remove your display adaptor. Reboot, and XP should kick into VGA mode, and allow you to install proper display drivers.

Doh, there was a good chance that you could have gotten into Safe Mode on XP to fix it.

Ah well, too late. I had lots of junk on it I didn't use so it's no big loss. The important stuff is on the desktops. Thanks for the advice, I'll try it next time. I want to get rid of Me altogether but don't want to get a new laptop just yet...