Enable "Plug and Play O/S" in BIOS when using WinXP Pro?

[Mohamed110]

I have an ASUS A7V266 motherboard running an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ MB... I'm setting up WinXP Pro and I'm wondering whether or not I should enable "Plug and Play O/S" in the BIOS setup. The default for it is disabled.

Any help?

 

[AkumaBao]

yes. You want that to be enabled.

 

[BurnItDwn]

you want this on unless you use an OS that does not support PNP. Pretty much every OS since 1995 has supported PNP (i know there are exceptions) so yau waill want this enabled

 

[SemperFi]

As said before windows enable it.

If you are going to use Linux you will need to to turn it to disable. I am not sure about the latest but I messed around with mandrake 7.1 about a year ago and had to disable it to get the sound and network card to work.

 

[Haden]

Well I'm using disabled and user settings (I don't wan't video/sound/net/raid to share same Irq).
Also Mircrosoft claims this:
The Plug and Play operating system settings in the computer's BIOS should not affect how Windows handles the hardware in general. However, Microsoft recommends that you set this setting to "No" or "Disabled" in the computer's BIOS
For more info

 

[Slikkster]

Haden is correct in that Microsoft has taken this position, starting with Windows 2000. However, in my own experience, I find that toggling that setting in my bios (bx6 rev 2.0) makes no difference at all whether it's on or off. I leave it on because I dual-boot between XP and 98SE.

 

[MrPhelps]

grc Take a look at this, I am not sure what to make of it yet?

 

[Slikkster]

The UPNP issue is for Windows XP only (by default) and only if Win98 and ME users enable it. This is NOT the plug and play specification that your bios refers to. This has to do with discovering tcp/ip devices on a network. Anyway, read the entire link you published, and it will tell you more about it and exactly why XP users should take note.