Our office (all three of us) have switched to Windows XP. I am quite happy with it so far. It seems pretty stable.

Just thought I would share. :)

Yeah...its pretty good except some programs don't work with it and you have to buy the new versions.

Yeah, do you have Office XP Pro? Very nice. :)

No, my partner bought it though (Office XP pro) and it does look pretty slick

Originally posted by Steeldolphin
I am quite happy with it so far.

Geez what a difference 24hrs makes eh!

Geez what a difference 24hrs makes eh!

its amazing how many times i would have to restart my comp in 24 hours before. :)

I wasnt happy with XP, although i am on a laptop, and 2k does everything i need.
And faster :)

The ONLY reason I ugraded to XP because I bought an Athlon XP CPU so it just seemed necesary, you know? But now I'm quite happy with it. Runs very nice :)

Yeah, Celeron500 just really doesnt cut it

Still hasnt froze on me for the 5 months or so that Ive had it

What were you guys using before you switched Chris?

I had 98, and had 2k at one time though. The other comps were 98 as well.

Ah, 98...when all my gear was compatible...Those were the days...

Blehhh! My Hewlet Packard canme with ME.
I don't know if it's the computer itself or ME, but the thing keeps blinking out at the most innapropriate times.
It SUCKS.
Oddly enough though, with my contempt I hold for ME (not myself, but WindowsME), I'm still not convinced XP is all that great. Sure it looks pretty, but most of the stuff that's supposed to be new and shiny, you can download off the net anyways.
Is it just me being narrow minded and there's something I don't know about out it or is it just Microsoft re-selling old stuff with added extras?

Well XP is based on NTFS technology and offers a much more stable file system like 2000 and NT which is good. I had worked on NT systems with one company for close to a year and only had to restart the comp twice it was VERY stable.

:)

XP is the most stable OS I have ever used. It also uses your RAM and system resources extremely well. I am at 2% CPU Usage right now according the performance thing, on ME I could never get below 40% usage.

If you have somewhat new hardware then its as solid as a rock. If your mother board is old (and I mean really old, not just a couple years old) then you might have problems.

Its also recommended that you have sufficient RAM. 128 is required I believe, but 256 is recommended (and this coming from MS engineer)

I am really happy so far. (4 days and counting...no crashes)

Mine crashed, wouldn't start up. It's done that a few times too. I managed to figure it out though, so if you have any problems, ask me, I might be able to help out there.

Anyways, I haven't turned my computer off since I installed XP 2 months ago. It'd be kind of weird to hear nothing now, if that makes sense...

:)

Yeah, If Icome into the office and I dont hear it...its really strange.

Originally posted by adam
I am at 2% CPU Usage right now according the performance thing, on ME I could never get below 40% usage.

It's strange that your CPU usage is only 2%, XP is far more draining on system resources than W2K. Try running PhotoShop and open an image, see what your CPU usage jumps to. You can see what processes are currently running by pressing Ctl-Alt-Del and clicking on the processes tab.

XP uses the same flat memory model as W2K, it also uses the same architecture as W2K. Applications run in seperate address spaces and, having no direct access to the hardware, make hardware requests through the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL).

I'm currently studying for my MCSE, it's the W2K stream, but I can try and answer any questions you guys might have.

I have PS, and IE, and a couple other apps running (winamp, AIM, etc) and a 31 meg tiff open in PS. My cpu usage is 3% PF usage reads 400mb...I have a little over half my remaining memory available right now (277384)

I have noticed no system slow down, but my comp has decent memory and cpu speed (although nothing compared to deep_thought's machine)

you can set up a monitor of cpu usage over a period of time then review it later so you can see how your processor typically performs. Once something is loaded into it's memory address the CPU should settle down. CPU usage will jump if the system needs to page files into and out of memory, but it sounds like you guys use enough RAM not to worry about it..512MB??

I'm running W2K with 5 apps running (35 processes) including Illustrator 10 and winamp and my cpu usage is about 8% average with 434mb ram left and 220 used. Add Photoshop to the mix with a 70mb file and cpu usage stays about the same but ram usage goes up to 343mb and available down to 312mb. While Photoshop is actually processing my cpu usage is between 35 to 90% (of course).
I have a slower cpu than Steeldolphin by close to 20-40% (I would think) so that would make a diff too. If you are running a virus scanner and software firewall that will make a diff too (I am).

By my own hand, I'm going to have to upgrade from 98 to 2000. The rest of the office (about 100 people) already has. I am anxious about this change as I have heard that not all software runs efficiently in that OS. But that is only heresay, I have not taken it upon myself to investigate much. I guess I'll know firsthand within the next few days.

The reports of lots of software not working with W2K are exaggerated. Older apps will have problems because the access the hardware directly, which W2K & XP simply do not allow by design. Device driver problems were solved ages ago. Don't worry about the upgrade alda.b, besides, you can always configure a dual-boot system.

Dual-boot system? No hablo OSese. ;)

Win 2k comes with a boot loader that allows you to choose which os you want to use at start-up. When installing Win2k just don't install over your existing OS. You can also use linux like this.

I have been running Win2k for over 1.5 years now and I've only had problems with my 1st tablet (calcomp) and my printer (canon). A new driver about a year ago fixed the tablet and the printer has sort of worked for 6 months (I don't use it anyhow). Any drivers that work with xp should work with 2k and vice versa. The only software problems I have had are with games.

:)

alda.b: I have Windows 2000 Pro on one hardrive (Maxtor 40GB) and Windows XP Pro on another (Seagate 40GB). If you don't have two hardrives, partition your current one (with FDISK or Partition Magic 7). On my old sytem I have a 16.8GB with a 2GB Windows 98 partition and 14.8GB Windows 2000 Pro partition. I love that I can go into Windows 2000 and fix anything when XP decides to be...a pain in the ass. I love it even more that I have a second pc in case one of them decides to...be a pain in the ass. I personally find Win 2K more stable...So I'd recommend using partitions and have a dual boot :)

Chris: My PC isn't that much better... Trade ya my pc for your camera? :P

Dan: your vid card alone is more than my pc ;)

Haha. Actually, my video card is almost as big as my pc. I've been using pcs for a while, and seen a lot of things, but I've never seen a card as big as this. It barely fits in the case, I'm talkin millimeter or less left here :p

It sure does kick ass though, and cost accordingly. It cost as much as my CPU, motherboard, RAM, case, and fans combined!