Installing XP Pro on my laptop...

Those are usually just registry entries Hero. Occasionally a program will leave a single key file around in a windows directory to avoid re-installation, but rarely.

They still tend to slow the system down, because they're often lots of entries and if you're not careful your registry can become corrupt.

One of my biggest criticisms of Windows is the way it stores all the settings in a large centralised cryptic database prone to corruption rather than in human readable text files.

Now that i am more framilliar with linux, i am toying the idea of putting Debian on it. I dont know? I heard debian was pretty good. My favourite distro of linux is Knoppix, which is related to Debian, so, i am really not sure. I guess i will find out when i finally get my disks...

Finnally get your discs? Just download it.

Marks256 said:

Now that i am more framilliar with linux, i am toying the idea of putting Debian on it. I dont know? I heard debian was pretty good. My favourite distro of linux is Knoppix, which is related to Debian, so, i am really not sure. I guess i will find out when i finally get my disks...

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While Debian is a very good (stable) linux distro, it tends to be dated since their aim is security and stability (and FOSS), you might be better with one of the more dynamic Debian-based distro's Like: Ubuntu


but got to plug the best distro... Gentoo

Now that i am more framilliar with linux, i am toying the idea of putting Debian on it. I dont know? I heard debian was pretty good. My favourite distro of linux is Knoppix, which is related to Debian, so, i am really not sure. I guess i will find out when i finally get my disks...

Click to expand...

I had Debian Linux on my laptop and desktop for a while in dual boot using GRUB (I don't think it's 100% compatable with a NTFS file system but FAT32 & EXT3 seemed to co-exist OK, except that defrag in Windas wouldn't work right.) The install was pretty easy; no harder than installing DOS / WIN16 in the "good old days".
It worked OK once I got all the drivers installed properly since not everything my PC had autodetected correctly. The issue for me came down to the fact that there is little game support in Linux but the clincher was that there isn't a Linux version of MPLAB that seemed to be reliable. It seemed to be too much of a hassle to get MPLAB to work under WINE in Linux, so eventually I went back to Windas only.

You haven't tried VMware's virtualization software lately have you? It's not ideal, it's not the fastest. But it is COMPLETLY transparent to the application. The only problem that can occur is timeing issues in real time systems.
Runs comfortably from within X. runs Win98. I'm sure it can run XP as well.

The average user if they wish to run the software can find hacks and cracks to that effect. Serious users will pay the money for it.

Marks256 said:

Now that i am more framilliar with linux, i am toying the idea of putting Debian on it. I dont know? I heard debian was pretty good. My favourite distro of linux is Knoppix, which is related to Debian, so, i am really not sure. I guess i will find out when i finally get my disks...

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I used Knoppix way back.. Take a look at PCBSD (think it is PCBSD.org)

But no eagle, photoshop, etc. I have about 20 BSD machine and 2 to run Windows crap.

You haven't tried VMware's virtualization software lately have you?

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Never did try that one.

It's not ideal, it's not the fastest.

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When I upgrade to a faster machine I'll revisit Debian/Linux. My system is a throw away item because the RDRAM it uses is so expensive that a new box is cheaper than a 512Mb upgrade!

But it is COMPLETLY transparent to the application. The only problem that can occur is timeing issues in real time systems.
Runs comfortably from within X. runs Win98. I'm sure it can run XP as well.

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Hmmmm... Sounds promising. As long as there are no USB timing/functional issues then MPLAB should work then. I sure would like to ditch Windas permanently. It seems that every "Security Update" is just another Delay Loop inserted into the kernal!

Styx said:

OMG!!! Quake-viper, I thought all traces of this BS was purged from the web

DO NOT TRUST THIS ADVICE!!
this will mess yr PC up. Also they are not memory hogs. majority of them get swapped out early in a Win boot

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Lol, That's just not cricket old chap, the first thing i do after installing win2k or XP is go into services and disable useless programs that microsoft has decided i need, ie Messenger, remote registry, remote install and helpsv. I have been doing this for years and it has not messed anything up.
Because i'm running process explorer i have a good idea of what rubbish is running in the background and at startup and Regprot is a simple program that lets you know when something is being added to the registry for startup. Using these little freeware apps keeps the machine cleaner than it normally would be without them and I would not suggest anything that i didn't think was the mutts nuts.

Did you know that you can already do that with native XP components at the command prompt?

Sceadwian said:

Did you know that you can already do that with native XP components at the command prompt?

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Do what? task list and kill??

XP, NT and Win2k can all view processes and kill some of them, 90% of the time though windows will not let you kill them. Process explorer is just an advanced version that lets you have a lot more information and control over whats going on, try it and see. In this pic i just noticed i'm running a print spooler when i don't have a printer on this machine, 2.4MB of RAM wasted, it's a laptop with only 256MB so then i ran services.msc and stopped and disabled it. Sure i could have done it without processXP but hey whatever floats ya boat.

the first thing i do after installing win2k

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...is format your system, flush your eyes out with holy water, burn your finger prints off, and finally burn the system you installed it on...

2K SUCKS!!!!!!!!

Finnally get your discs? Just download it.

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Aaah, that is what i am doing. My Internet is too slow at my house, so i have it downloading at my school(i have all those rights, because i am special ). The Tech Coordinator is/was supposed to burn them to CDs for me, but, well, if you knew him, i probably won't get them for another month or two. Oh well, i will just have to burn them myself when i get a chance.

Marks256 said:

...is format your system, flush your eyes out with holy water, burn your finger prints off, and finally burn the system you installed it on...

2K SUCKS!!!!!!!!

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Umm, This is going back a few years, long before Linux-dvd's and XP, i'd like to know what you were using back then?

Windows 2000 was the best Windows OS around back then.

Some people even claim it's still better than XP.

It did have its advantages like no compusory registration ar genuine advantage crap, it was less bloated and pretty stable.

I myself think XP was a pretty minor Windows release having just a couple of improvements on Windows 2000. MS have even admitted this in the version numbering of the kernels, Windows 2000 is NT 5.0.x while Windows XP is NT 5.1.x. I would myself choose Windows 2000 professional over XP Home but not XP Pro.

chiba said:

Lol, That's just not cricket old chap, the first thing i do after installing win2k or XP is go into services and disable useless programs that microsoft has decided i need, ie Messenger, remote registry, remote install and helpsv. I have been doing this for years and it has not messed anything up.
Because i'm running process explorer i have a good idea of what rubbish is running in the background and at startup and Regprot is a simple program that lets you know when something is being added to the registry for startup. Using these little freeware apps keeps the machine cleaner than it normally would be without them and I would not suggest anything that i didn't think was the mutts nuts.

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cricket or no cricket, I was ballancing out the bad advice (ie no warnings) that is given from Quack-viper. His orignal site is well known and he promised soo much from doing soo little with no warning of the concequences

FACT
serivces once started IF not used (ie the remote reg) get swapped out by the NT-kernel very quickly thus no RAM/CO=PU is used by them
this is true abt most of the services.

https://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=913036
https://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=892729&page=1&pp=20

Hero999 said:

Windows 2000 was the best Windows OS around back then.

Some people even claim it's still better than XP.

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QFT!

only reason I use XP is for gaming since game-makers hard-coded a check for XP (even tho the same back-end).

Still got the 2k disk to, great no activation (legit copy btw) but Gentoo linux staying on my system

Umm, This is going back a few years, long before Linux-dvd's and XP, i'd like to know what you were using back then?

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Umm, Windows 98se! 98se was, and still is, one of the most stable releases of Windows! It is a proven fact that 98/98se was the greatest OS M$ has ever encountered; just look at how long they postponed the support kill date!
I absolutely hate 2k. Nothing but problems! 2k is what we use at my high school. Every time i have to fix a 2k system, the little vein in the side of my neck starts to bulge!

1) Slow
2) Unstable
3) Tons of driver issues
4) Unstable
5) Lots of bugs
6) Did is mention unstable? Yeah, yeah i did.

2k is hell.

I know people's personal experiance can vary a lot so I'm not going to bother arguing with you.

All I can say is that Windows 2000 was based on NT, one of the most reliable OSes ever made by MS, while Windows 98 was a horrible bodge, of MS-DOS, Win32 and Win16.

You could configure Windows 2000 with multiple user accounts and control each users access rights and privilages, in a similar manner to UNIX. If you wanted you could set up an admin account for installing software and several limited user accounts for general use. This would stop authorised users from installing programs or messing with settings they shouldn't, also help prevent viruses and other malware from infecting the system (if the Windows system directories and registry are write protected it's pretty hard to infect a system). There was true separation of the hardware and software, all hardware had to be accesed via drivers running in kernel mode. NTFS is a far superiour file system, it actually has true long file name support and is less susceptable to corruption than FAT32. There was memory protection, if one program had a bug tried to write to a system area of memory, only that program would crash and not the entire system.

Windows 98 didn't have any of these things. You could set up multiple user accounts but all of the users could install what they wanted, edit the registry and malware could infect any part of the system. FAT32 was buggy as hell and didn't natively support long file names, Windows achieved this by storing the long file name data in separate files. Memory protection was flakey at best, if a program teid to write to a system memory area it could take down the whole system.

1. Yes I agree, Windows 2000 was slightly slower than Windows 98.
2. No. Providing the drivers were good it would run forever. I've left my Win2k system on for months at work and it didn't crash.
3. I partly agree, there weren't that many drivers for games, but that's because it wasn't designed as a home system, it was more aim at business rather than home use.
4. Read number 2.
5. Not half as many as Windows 98.
6. No, in fact there's very little difference between XP and 2k, they're practically the same OS.