New DOS shell for Windows coming

[willbill]

Yes, I got on quite well with Win98SE -- even managed a couple of
mbrd/chipset swaps without a reinstall -- though latterly things got worse
as new software came along. A silent install (WTF - why do they do this ?)
of IE 5.5SP2 along with some application software I bought was one event
which increased general flakeyness - still wondering if that was
intentional by M$ to sink Mozilla, which is my preferred browser. Then
Adobe Acrobat 5.1 caused lock-ups regularly on exiting the damned thing -
in the end I was glad to get away from it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i can believe that

i'm still hoping that XP Pro will be more
stable than 98SE, but i'm off to a rough
start with it.

even standby is more flakey than 98SE,
at least with a game like Planetscape Torment.
i've had XP totally freeze up twice after
playing Torment and then going into standby.

plays havoc with the XP Sil Image 3114 raid
utility (250GB NTFS extended partition) and
puts it into a blue funk which takes a 2+ hour
recheck of it). (i'm in 98 at the moment
and can't provide the key word/term for it.
but it's so far still ok & all is still well.

keith likes "winblows" and i may start
calling XP just that

That's one of the reasons I do backups more regularly. Backup MyPC has,
err, claims to have, a disaster recovery procedure where you can recover a
complete system. Even then a few days of loss could mean important e-mails
lost.

i'm soooo happy i'm not doing sysadmin
on any group with winblows.

The lack of a free download of the Pro Resource Kit is a major annoyance
there. Tools are mentioned in the M$ KB which are only available in that
kit. My experiences with Win2K Server have not been that good - I just
found out the other day that a Restore of System State does not appear to
properly restore "junctions".

my real experience (with 2k vs xp) is
at best limited

what is clear is that xp is more complex
than anything in the past (with the likely
exception of 2003 server)

You mean the modem doesn't work or WinXP doesn't boot properly?

XP boots fine, provided i give it at least
75 seconds (after the login screen) shows up

fwiw, if i log in before that my SATARaid
utility fails!!

(GFC, i'm starting to HATE XP!)

I assume
the former. Is it a RS232 modem on a COM port?

it's a very recent (from Newegg) external US
Robotics v.92 modem (roughly 80-85$)

It's been a while since I used a serial port modem but does the modem
appear in Device Manager when you start WinXP with it powered off? Have
you tried a Scan For Hardware Changes from the Action menu of Device
Manager? Was it found through Plug 'n' Play with Win98SE and/or Win2K?

really nice suggestion george!

i thoutht i thought of everything...

except that!

so i booted into XP (with the modem off), and then
turned it on and went into control-panel/find-new-hardware

and sure enough that solved the problem!!

winblows; keith is right

bill