Is it worth upgrading to XP Pro ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kevin Lawton
  • Start date Start date
I am looking for something approx 50 meg?
I have actually had these disks a good while, but hating change, I have
never installed them.

Sorted by size, descending, this is the top of the manifest and it seems
that the upgrade advisor should fall between the first file (76 meg) and the
second file (13 meg), even allowing for a possible CAB compression:


DRIVER .CAB 76699621 r... 8-23-01 12:00:0
OEMBIOS .BI_ 13113765 r... 8-23-01 12:00:0
IMJPST .DI_ 8614,079 r... 8-23-01 12:00:0
HWXJPN .DL_ 8422,595 r... 8-23-01 12:00:0
PINTLGS .IM_ 7007,742 r... 8-23-01 12:00:0
HWXCHT .DL_ 6691,525 r... 8-23-01 12:00:0


FACE
 
From empirical evidence (not what *should* work, theoretically, but what I
seen to work) I have found that a drastic measure that i can take if i catch
it prior to machine lockup on GDI failure is to slow flush RAM (that is,
writing info as necessary, but flushing the thing in any event)

From an observational standpoint, and since the failure on user resources
occurs after about 12-14 hours of fairly intense use, this says to me that
you are correct in that certain functions do NOT release used resources when
they go away. In an unofficial way, i call it "dirty memory".

Having been a systems programmer managing application programmers in another
lifetime, I will take up for the "lazy" statements which I took as somewhat
self-deprecatory on Richard's part. When something works, and appears
sufficient, then when faced with deadlines and limited time, human nature
takes over in a 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' kind of way. If you have
ever attempted to fix a program with an "all I have to do is..." approach
and found yourself 3 hours later wishing that you could back to where you
were before you started the "simple" change, you will know what I
mean.....and what Richard meant. After a person does that a few times they
get real skittish about fixing what isn't broke. :-)

But.....what happened here is that "old" machine technology continued
without change until application technology outran it. (Consider as an
analogy the Y2K teck-no non-disaster which would have been a disaster if
many 1000s of $100+ man hours had not been put in. It was a possible
disaster because machine technology from the fifties -- yes, fifties -- had
been carried forward without change, migrated from mainframe to PC.)

Anyway, i'll stop here since all of this will be in my book "why I hate
change and we gotta have it".

Looks like I need to download that "Upgrade Advisor". Maybe I'll find a
neighbor with a DSL/Broadband account or maybe i could start it about
midnight here and have it in the morning........

FACE
 
In
Kevin Lawton said:
It seems to me that with memory being so cheap at the moment,
it is
one of the most cost-effective upgrades you can make to a
windows
machine - unless, of course, you already have plenty.
Click to expand...


As long as you include your caveat "unless, of course, you
already have plenty," I don't disagree, but I just wanted to
caution people that adding memory won't improve performance for
everyone. Many people add memory, expecting a performance boost,
but are then surprised when they don't get one. The reason, of
course, is that they already have "plenty."

How much is "plenty"? How much memory you need depends on what
apps you run, but almost everyone needs at least 256MB for decent
performance. For some people, for example those who edit large
photographic images, more than 256MB--even much more--can be
required for good performance.

If you are currently using the page file significantly, more
memory will decrease or eliminate that usage, and improve your
performance. If you are not using the page file significantly,
more memory will do nothing for you.

Go to http://billsway.com/notes_public/winxp_tweaks/ and
download WinXP-2K_Pagefile.zip and monitor your pagefile usage.
That should give you a good idea of whether more memory can help,
and if so, how much more.
 
Usually, the reason they don't get a performance increase is because they
don't change settings for things like the icon cache, etc.
 
In
Colin Barnhorst said:
Usually, the reason they don't get a performance increase is
because
they don't change settings for things like the icon cache, etc.
Click to expand...


No, it's because they already have enough memory to keep them
from using the page file, and adding more than that does nothing
for them. It is *not* true that more memory always provides a
speed increase.
 
| "Kevin Lawton" <[email protected]> skrev i melding
| || I've been using Windows 2000 Pro for almost four years now and it is
|| 'okay'.
|| Not perfect, by any means, but quite okay for general use.
|| My applications are just 'general use' - internet & e-mail, office
|| apps like
|| word & excel, SQL server 2000 database, photo editing, CD burning,
|| etc. Nothing very esoteric, just 'bread and butter' work.
|| Reliability and efficiency are what I like to see, fancy 'eye candy'
|| like animated icons and screen savers are of no interest and for the
|| sake of efficiency I'd rather be without them.
|| So, the question is: is it worth paying the cost and going to the
|| trouble of
|| upgrading to Windows XP Pro or should I just stick with Windows 2000
|| ? What
|| do I stand to gain - or lose ?
|
| If you're happy with 2K Pro then I suggest you stick to 2K Pro, at
| least until it reaches end of life and you no longer get security
| fixes for it, or until you clearly identify a feature in XP (or any
| other OS) that you would really like.
|
| I chose the upgrade path, but I'd might as well have left it alone. XP
| introduces a whole bunch of new fancy bells and whistles, but I have
| turned of most of them. The only things I have found in XP Pro that
| is better than 2K Pro is handling of multi-monitor setups, better
| application compatibility (particularly games and demos) and faster
| boot time. On the downside is tons of annoying bells and whistles,
| higher hardware requirements and lower stability.

Thanks, André - lower stability ?
This is the first I've heard anyone mention XP Pro being less stable than
Win 2K and would most definitely make a difference to me. Can you give more
details, please ?
Kevin.
 
Kevin said:
Thanks, André - lower stability ?
This is the first I've heard anyone mention XP Pro being less stable
than Win 2K and would most definitely make a difference to me. Can
you give more details, please ?
Click to expand...

I can't give you any hard and fast numbers on claiming that one is more
stable than the other. This is just my experience, so your mileage may vary.
But my Windows 2000 Pro-setup was rock solid for years running, and wouldn't
go belly-up if you hit it with a truck. And multitasking was super smooth.

Since going to XP Pro I have experienced minor instabilities, mostly in
connection with logoff and hibernation. There is also a general feeling of
sluggishness that was not present under 2K Pro, with slow responses, periods
where the system would freeze to a full halt and sluggish multitasking under
heavy CPU load. SP2 seems to have improved this somewhat, but not totally.

Fast user switching also seems to introduce some stability issues, but this
feature can be turned off and/or not used. In the beginning I also had
problems getting all my hardware working properly (such as activating DMA
for my Plextor burner), but this has been resolved.
 
Back
Top