Sys C:. goodbye XP pro, back to 98SE

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pjp

Decided to install XP Pro after very long period of deliberation. I elected
to leave my 98SE install as is and place XP Pro on the 2nd hard disk, hence
creating a dual-boot system.

It's been 8 days now, 4 installs (first turned out to be ok but didn't
figure that out till later, others were me making mistakes during install)
amd the OS appears to be working properly. Can't seem to control anything I
expected to regarding what people can and cannot do. I can't easily get a
command prompt were I want, I've already had to use a 98boot disk to delete
some files when XP wouldn't boot in normal or safe mode. I have so much crap
running with no idea what it does and MS's help telling you to "run the
wizard" for almost everything. I had a whore of a time getting XP to "merge"
into my existing Netbuei ethernet.

This will be my last post for awhile in this newsgroup.

I intend to shutdown, boot with a floppy, run SYS C:, copy Command.com over,
reboot back into 98SE and start deleting all this crap.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY find it hard to believe that your typical home user
needs what MS is offering.

This experience has clearly demonstrated one thing to me. No wonder security
is such a nightmare. State of the art OS (supposedly) yet I can't easily
even lock down the Guest account so that all they can do is double click an
icon on the screen, navigate no where except in their own "My Documents"
space, no right clicking anything, and a few other what I thought were basic
security features. Therefore, there seems to be no point in even setting up
accounts.

Anyway, bye, it's back to the 98SE newsgroups.

One last comment to anyone reading this from MS.

Has it ever occurred to you that some people given that they accept they'll
have to learn a lot when "upgrading", come to the decision that Linux is the
better choice. Let's face it, if I'm going to wade through the myriad
options etc. etc. available in both OS's, doesn't it seem a better choice to
at least pick the OS were at the end you've learned something about how
things work rather than just where and how to fill out various wizards and
not have any clue how any of it worked? Least that seems to be my choice
now.
 
I'm back in 98SE. XP Pro has been deleted off system.

I've got 20+ years professional programming experience almost exclusively in
a PC environment so I do feel I have some knowledge about "things". I've
acted as a tech on more than one occassion and have setup and maintained
more than one small network. In fact, have 5 pc ethernet network running
inside my own house. I put XP on as much because I was getting a little
tired of having "friends" test a few programming tasks I have on the go
right now.

From my point of view, if I have to fight to "understand" how to use an OS
that hard, it might as well be Linux. As I said before, at least then I'll
learn something usefull rather than simply how to run various wizards and
not have a clue about how things really work or what they really are doing.

For example : take the Alerter service. All help seemed to basically say
"other" just as cryptic services depend on this service. Help leads nowhere
in trying to find out what the services actually does nor does it help to
enlighten you about "what" the "other" services are or if they do mention
one, it'll not be explained either.

What I saw was a PC running about 40 or so (at least) different "programs"
few of which I knew what they were, why they were running, what purpose they
served or the consequences or implications of changing their "status". Help
led no-where in the sense of understanding. You might as well be training a
chimp to push the colored buttons in the right order.

Geez, you can't even fully control what the Guest account can see and do!!!
Or at least no-one in any newsgroup stepped up to the plate and told me how
to control a specific individual rather than some group! To my mind that's
idiotic, providing at best limited flexibility.

In any case, XP's gone. Cd's back on the shelf. No loss it was a gift from a
non-Windows using friend who won it. I never bothered activating etc. as I
suspect that'd wear thin pretty quick.

Bottom line is that XP can still crash and it can still lock up. I had no
problem and can reproduce getting a fresh install to lockup after login,
never showing the desktop in both normal a safe mode (just install the wrong
sound card driver). I used a 98SE boot floppy to delete the newly installed
driver file after first noticing that using the XP cd to get to a command
prompt also limited where you could navigate and what you could see and
do!!! WTF, I couldn't believe that!!!

In that sense, XP to me it's still just a cousin of Win95 and it'll stay
that way (meaning future versions) until they change their design and
eliminate that problem. Something I doubt will happen until the "world"
wakes up to the fact we're running almost everything on something that's far
from stable, IMHO. It should be pretty obvious to everyone that the problem
is not going to be cured by adding more services, patching more holes etc.
etc. Any programmer (in fact almost any design in any discipline) will tell
you that you can only get away with that for so long before it becomes
simply unmaintainable. From where I sit, the design principle of creating a
"behemoth" that does all is flawed. I feel it will sooner or later crush
under it's own weight while at the same time being overkill and
unmaintainable for the average user. In fact, it's there now.

Don't get me wrong. Didn't mind spending the week checking things.
Windows XP For Dummies
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTitle/productCd-0764508938.html

Video Professor - Microsoft Windows XP
Click to expand...
http://www.freevideoprofessorcds.net/video-professor-microsoft-windows-xp.php
 
SYS C: will not wipe the drive. If the partition is formatted with NTFS
your bootdisk won't be able to access it.



--

The security features you describe such as disabling right-clicking (I'm not
sure how that improves security) are accomplished roughly the same way in 98
as in XP Pro, so have fun with that. The thing is, anything you do in 98
is easily bypassed. Try hitting escape or Cancel at the login box in
Windows 98 :) You'll see that user accounts are really just a set of
preferences as opposed to an actual security mechanism. You seem to want to
enforce security by limiting the graphical interface that the user sees,
while NT-based operating systems do this at a much lower and ultimately more
secure level. And XP still has options to turn the machine into a "kiosk"
if you want (try running gpedit.msc from Start--> Run).

I'm not going to argue with you, but please understand that XP Professional
is geared toward "professionals" which implies a learning curve.

Without reading books, online documentation of a technical nature, and/or
taking courses you are not going to learn how things "truly work" regardless
of the OS.
 
I'm back in 98SE. XP Pro has been deleted off system.

I've got 20+ years professional programming experience almost exclusively in
a PC environment
Click to expand...


BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAH SUUURE you do.
 
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