Microsoft XP is SHITE, as it is obstructive, overweight and over-protective. Which idiot thought that the changes in the established interface would improve Windoze? I am far happier with W2K and NT 4, but then I'm known for being a reactionary old fart

But this is not what I'm here for today, folks. There must be someone out there who knows enough about how you go about adding a network adapter once it has been deleted (accidentally or otherwise)? Adding an adapter used to be pretty straightforward, now I can't even see where I can do it. Anyone know?

I don't know either, but the first thing I do when I install XP, is to put the OS back in the "Classical theme" (right mouse button -> themes -> Windows classical theme)

I do the same for the start menu.

Almost everything then works like it did in Win 2000 (which is what I still use BTW )

The network adapter should be visible in hardware manager. (right click my computer, select properties, then tab hardware). If it isn't visible and can't be discovered through "refreshing", you could also try the "Hardware"-icon in control-panel.

Yeah, if you invest countless hours, you can get XP to look just like 2000. But, in considering taking this route, I thought, "Are the 'advancements' in XP worth me wasting tons of time to make it work like 2000?" Realizing that I'd asked this question before when considering upgrading from Win98 to WinME, I used the same resolution I had back then. "The features offered by XP (and ME) are only fluf that I have no need for. I don't care about Media Player 9, I don't care about 138 gig HDD support (which 2k can't do), I don't care about an obnoxiously customized Start Menu, I don't care about stupid extra features here and there."

Yeah, if you invest countless hours, you can get XP to look just like 2000

Getting to look 99% like 2000 is easy - just select the Windows "Classic" theme. My XP machine at home looks just like my 2000 machine at work. I have no idea why it is installed with the Tellytubby scheme as standard, let alone why ex-98/2000 users don't immediately change it!

It boots very fast, though I had to do a clean install for it to be any good, however it hadn't been reinstalled for over 5 years anyway and was a Windows 95 "v1" install.

Gareth
(credit to somebody on this forum for the Tellytubby bit)

Yeah, if you invest countless hours, you can get XP to look just like 2000.

I actually like the way Windows XP looks, minus the default theme. The start panal to me now is second nature, and makes getting to My Computer and such much easier with a ton of open programs. The Start panal is also nice for the recently run program area. The system tray icon hider is also very nice, saving valuable taskbar space. I also like one feature of the taskbar grouping. Having it enabled keeps multiple windows from the same program next to each other, instead of scattered randomly around. I use TweakUI to set the minimum grouping setting to 99, as I don't like it when multiple windows turn into one taskbar entry. Also, I like the Windows-L for locking the workstation, and the ability to lock down the taskbars to prevent changes like it getting moved around ro resized.

That about sums up my liking of the new UI. Under the hood, the watchdog and error reporting process have been very helpful in narrowing down errors with my Shuttle system.

I could also care less about the newer Media Players, but they tend to be a necessary evil of getting the new codecs now. So, Start, Run, mplayer2 has been standard procedure for me to get back the 6.4 player and set it to defauly on any Windows platform. Though, I am liking the idea of having a single media player period (aka, no Quicktime), and the newer Real One players do play Quicktime files now. I'm still testing my patience with RealOne to decide if it's worth the hassle.

Why I like XP can be summed up in one word.

Cleartype.

A.

XP does have some other small good changes. One of my fav ones is that you can give a network adapter a "fallback" IP address and gateway, but still keep DHCP enabled. This can be very handy when moving a laptop between two networks, one with DHCP and one without.

The killer feature to me is still the boot, suspend and resume speeds. I am happy to put up with the other XP silliness on my laptop for this reason alone.

One of my fav ones is that you can give a network adapter a "fallback" IP address and gateway, but still keep DHCP enabled

I wish MS would "borrow" the feature in Mac OS where you can set up different networking profiles, including proxy settings that programs can tap into. To change your location, you simply hit the Apple Menu, choose Location, then the location you are at. There is supposidly a way to have it switch automaticially based on the network connection as well, but I haven't worked with that.

The killer feature to me is still the boot, suspend and resume speeds.

I suppose it's different on the go with a laptop, but boot speed would never be a factor for me. Sure, if one OS booted in 1 second, while mine booted in 2 minutes, I'd probably change, but if that fast OS were as crappy as a virus-laden WinME, I'm not going to change.

For me, not even an advanced techie by any stretch of the imagination, Win2K is much better. I love its usability more than XP, 98, MacOS, and whatever version of Linux my school was making me use.

The killer feature to me is still the boot, suspend and resume speeds.

My (old) iBook running OSX resumes from suspend before I can get the lid open fully. Is XP that fast (on a two-year-old machine)?

Is XP that fast (on a two-year-old machine)?

Nope. My Armada M700 (PIII850, 256 RAM) Takes about 10 seconds to enter full suspend, and 14 seconds to come back out and allow me to enter my password.

My P4 2.26ghz Shuttle desktop takes 4 seconds to enter standby, and about 10 seconds to wake up, including USB device functionality. If I had a PS/2 keyboard and mouse, I'd estimate it would take 7 seconds.

/me waits impatiently for the ability to replace the Armada with an OS X capable laptop.

I suppose it's different on the go with a laptop, but boot speed would never be a factor for me. Sure, if one OS booted in 1 second, while mine booted in 2 minutes, I'd probably change, but if that fast OS were as crappy as a virus-laden WinME, I'm not going to change.

Which is why I am only using WinXP on my laptop, my other Windows machines are still running Win2K.

My (old) iBook running OSX resumes from suspend before I can get the lid open fully. Is XP that fast (on a two-year-old machine)?

My laptop is over three years old, it is a PII366 with a slow 4200rpm harddisk.

It takes XP 60 seconds to resume from hibernation (i.e. from disk), 20 seconds of which is the BIOS startup time.

It takes it 7 seconds to resume from suspend (i.e. from memory), so not quite before the lid is open, but pretty close.

More importantly it takes about 6 seconds to go from on to hibernate.

This is a huge step forward for me from Win2k, because hibernation under Win2K isn't very reliable on this machine. It takes this machine over 5 minutes to boot under Win2K. It takes 75 seconds to boot under XP.

So for anyone with a laptop, even an old slow one, XP really does make sense. On a typical day the new XP behaviour can easily at 60% to the length of time my battery lasts, because if I am not using it for 15 minutes I can hibernate it and save myself 14 minutes of power.

P.S. I'd be very worried if an iBook didn't resume quickly, you'd expect to get benefits in these sorts of areas by having the hardware more tightly coupled to the software.

Does "full suspend" mean "hibernate" ?

Which is why I am only using WinXP on my laptop, my other Windows machines are still running Win2K

Ah, excellent. I see.

I've been arguing OS's with some family and friends this Thanksgiving weekend, because I was helping to install a printer on a machine running WinME. After freezes, Windows explorer crashes, and that weird thing where you close a window and its image stays in the background, I insisted that they change their OS. Of course, I ran Ad-aware and found 400 components running, 300 of which were in the registry, so it was a little easier after that.

I will say that my dad had ME on his computer and finally upgraded to XP. I'll take XP over that shite any day of the week.

Does "full suspend" mean "hibernate" ?

No, and I should have clarified that. My laptop will show the Windows banner with the message "Prepairing to standby", then blank the screen. After that, the backlight will turn off, the hard drive will spin down, and the power led will begin to blink, indicating suspend mode.

Hibernation on that system takes 14 seconds to enter (to the point where the system is off), the 30 second to boot back. 10 of that is the bios, 7 is the Intel boot agent for PXE support, and the rest is XP.