Has microsoft done anything good for the computer industry?

[dmcfarland]

Sounds good to me. Im almost tempted to learn programming so I can help some of these "not for primetime" OS's become prime time.

True ... but do we ever stick to the what the thread is about ? It gets boring after a while ... so we gotta change the subject some.

[worker201]

Sounds good to me. Im almost tempted to learn programming so I can help some of these "not for primetime" OS's become prime time.

Actually, all though they don't require you to sign anything, to make Linux better is your responsibility as a user.  If you don't know any programming, get on it.  Give back to the community what they have given to you.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Right, time for some screenshots.

Here's the task manger when nothing's running.


Memory usage: 80996KB (79.1MB)

And here it is under my favourate minimalistic configuration without explorer (the Windows desktop) running.


Memory usage: 70156KB (68.51MB)

[MarathoN]

That's mine when I've just started up.

I run Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 and nothing is 'tweaked'.



And that's my system when it's idle.

[jtpenrod]

Has Microsoft done anything good for the computer industry? Why, yes, it has: you have companies like Symantec and McAfee which employ lots of folks whose only reason for existing is to create products that overcome all the many shortcomings of the Windows OS.  

"You can run linux on a fucking P-200 with 32 mb's of ram. [...] But can it run gnome and openoffice?"

I have an old Dell Dimension from 1996: 113MHz P-I, 64MB RAM, 2.0GB HD, 1.5GB HD, 2.0MB RAM Vid card. This is running Slackware 9.0 with KDE 3.0. Runs just fine, and the only time that the lack of memory and the slowness of that P-I become apparant is during compiles of apps. This system originally came with Win 95 as an OEM install. With Linux, it's still quite useful.  :cool:

Could you run XP on that?  :rolleyes:

[Aloone_Jonez]

MarathoN,
That's quite normal for a well run Windows 2000 system, I notice that you're not running a memory resident anti-virus either - the biggest memory waster on most Windows systems. My tweaks are nothing major, they just disable the crap Microsoft added when they went from Windows 2000 to XP.

How much memory does your XP box use?

jtpenrod,
I have never implied that Windows's performance is anywhere near Linux's, anyway if I wanted to run Windows on that crappy old 64MB machine I'd use NT 4 and MS Office 97. What non-MS software could you run on it that'd give you a full Office suit? You might be able to get away with OO 1.1.5 but it'd be horribly slow and I know there's AbiWord but that's just a word processor not a full Office suit.

[MarathoN]

MarathoN,
That's quite normal for a well run Windows 2000 system, I notice that you're not running a memory resident anti-virus either - the biggest memory waster on most Windows systems. My tweaks are nothing major, they just disable the crap Microsoft added when they went from Windows 2000 to XP.

How much memory does your XP box use?

Ah I see, yeah well I don't know if mine is well-run or not, I don't tweak anything at all... :eek:

Erm, I used to have XP installed on this machine as a triple boot (with Slackware 10.2) but now I just run Win2k, I wasn't using Slackware so I didn't see the need for it to be installed, if my windows install ever fucks up I still have the Slackware CD to help

XP was way too slow, I would never run it again on this machine (or ever ), I don't see ANY benefit WHATSOEVER of running XP over 2000, I didn't even use XP (once for the Battlefield 2 Demo, but that's IT)

So apart from that, I'm happy enough with Win2k to say :fu: to XP

[Aloone_Jonez]

The only benefit I can see is security you can set up restricted accounts and SP 2 comes with a firewall and execution protection feature that makes it harder for viruses inc=stalling themselves and causeing damage. If you don't access the Internet or you have a good suit of 3rd party protection products or an external hardware firewall there's no point in running XP. Oh I forgot one more thing, XP will be supported by MS for longer than Windows 2000.

[Lead Head]

my computer with 512MB has about an average of 250-314MB free ram under XP, the same comp with 256MB ram only uses about 120MB ram

[Jack2000]

the more "services" you leave on
the more unstable the system gets!
i have maby 3-5 proceses runing at my win98
and a #$@#$!-ilion more on XP i mean wtf ?

[Lead Head]

on my XP, i got about 7 instances of svchost and when o try to stop one, XP freaks out saying the NT Athourity systen has quit un-expectadly

[MarathoN]

XP will be supported by MS for longer than Windows 2000.

Why would I give a fuck about XP being supported longer if I'm happy with Windows 2000? :p