Is it just me, or is Windows going backwards?

[Nebben]

I don't get it.

I just installed WinXP SP1 (using Professional) and it almost seems like Microsoft is TRYING to make their operating system suck. I mean, when you install XP, it takes a good hour or two of disabling features just to make it run somewhat fast... then when you install SP2, you have to do similar things, pretty much disable half of the 'improved features' in order to make it not run like you have 8MB of RAM.

Also, what the hell is with Windows Update leaving HUGE amounts of files on your hard drive? I have 600+ MB of temp files stores in random areas of my Windows folder due to updates from the website; do they think it's a good idea to store backups of EVERYTHING just in case we need to revert back (not that most of us can do so anyway)?

Is it too much to ask for Microsoft to simply MAKE THEIR OPERATING SYSTEMS COMPLETE AND STABLE BEFORE ADDING A BUNCH OF USELESS SHIT? Windows 98 was never complete and they just jumped onto a whole new project of making everything look cute and pretty for the new computer buyers rather than fixing their product and making it more stable and secure.

Every time I've bought a new OS from Microsoft since Windows 95, I spent the first few hours making whatever OS I've just installed look more like Win95.

BIG COLORFUL BUTTONS ARE NOT WHAT I, AND I SUSPECT MANY OTHERS, WANT! We want a stable, secure, streamlined, and high-performance OS to run the programs we care about, not a bloated OS with a bunch of cutesty icons and animations.

 

[Nebben]

Edit: I meant to say SP2, not SP1, in my first paragraph. 🙂

 

[Megatomic]

Windows XP is definitely heading in the right direction. I don't have the same issues you complain about and I have my system setup to automatically purge my temp. files when I log off.

Regarding the appearance of WinXP, it takes me about 2 minutes to revert back to Win2000 style GUI but I leave Luna on as I like the effect.

Which options are you disabling to make your system run faster? There may be an easy way to do what you want.

 

[Nebben]

Concerning the purging of temp files... Does your system purge the Windows update files stores in folders like Windows\$NtUninstallKB828741$ ?

I've realized that lots of stuff is stored there and have removed it, but it seems a little odd that Microsoft doesn't bother to inform us that they are wasting gigs of hard drive space 'just in case we need to revert back to before a windows update'.

And I have XP working pretty much how I want it, but I don't understand why the default configuration looks like something that you'd find on a Gateway computer. Perhaps they could include a choice during the Windows setup: 'I have a clue, please don't throw annoying Wizards at me constantly' or 'I am an idiot. Please enable 50 different Wizards for every possible thing I could do to change my settings'

And the stuff like window animation, window shadows, etc., to me, are totally useless and a complete waste. When I open a folder, I want to see what's in the folder NOW, not after I stand in awe of the amazing window-opening transition.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Nebben
Concerning the purging of temp files... Does your system purge the Windows update files stores in folders like Windows\$NtUninstallKB828741$ ?

No, it doesn't. But I don't have all those folders in my Windows directory, I slipstreamed SP2 onto my Pro CD. There have been very few big updates to Windows since the release of SP2.

Is buying a bigger hard drive out of the question? 😛

 

[Nebben]

No, it's not. I have one on the way, actually 🙂

I just miss the days when the operating system didn't use more resources than the programs running on it.

I like my computer to run as fast as possible and have as little junk stored on it as possible. In the days of 160HB hard drives for $60, it's not a huge deal, but it's still sloppy design. I just freed up over 5GB of space by deleting nothing but temp files. About 2MB of that was detected by the legendary "Disk Cleanup Wizard". That is 0.0004% accuracy. Congratulations, Microsoft!

XP is more stable than it's predecessors, and I'm happy about that. However, I could do without 75% of the new features added.

I skipped Windows 2000, going straight from 98 to XP, so perhaps 2k is what I'm looking for...

 

[n0cmonkey]

I saw a 250GB hard drive for like $130AR or $150AR the other day. 600MB isn't going to bother me.

The new security features are priceless, because people are morons.

Every machine I've put it on or used it on has run it decently (pre-sp2). I plan on putting it on my dual athlon, and I expect it will run quite well, despite the fact I don't have much RAM (512MB).

The latest versions of windows are as stable as pretty much everything else out there. Security is a concern, but as long as people are morons it will always be a huge concern.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I saw a 250GB hard drive for like $130AR or $150AR the other day. 600MB isn't going to bother me.

The new security features are priceless, because people are morons.

Every machine I've put it on or used it on has run it decently (pre-sp2). I plan on putting it on my dual athlon, and I expect it will run quite well, despite the fact I don't have much RAM (512MB).

The latest versions of windows are as stable as pretty much everything else out there. Security is a concern, but as long as people are morons it will always be a huge concern.

Agreed. There's nothing "sloppy" about providing your users with a way to rollback hotfixes. That is the purpose of the $NtUninstallxxx$ folders (which are compressed anyway to save space).

 

[Infohawk]

I've been happy with windows lately. SP2 fixed a problem that was causing my system to crash a lot (works under linux). Also, I even like xp better from an interface perspective compared with 2K. (you can disable most of the changes).

 

[Nebben]

How about providing the option to NOT store these backups?

That's what is 'sloppy'. You can disable System Restore, or lessen the space it uses, but you have no option (to my knowledge) to control the WU backups.

Considering reverting a major update like a Service Pack doesn't even work half the time, I'd prefer to not waste almost a gig of space on a backup.

Windows 95 used like 10MB of RAM in itself. WinXP uses a hundred or two MB. For what? Some of it is useful features, yes, but the bulk of it is junk. I have no problem with all of the features being available, but I'd like it if I had some choice as to whether or not I want to waste 100+ MB of RAM on junk I don't use.

 

[Megatomic]

With just WinXP SP2 and my hardware drivers installed, my system has consumed only ~90MB of system RAM. Now, when I install my Nero/PowerDVD/video editing software my RAM consumption goes up to ~170MB at boot. I have 1GB installed so I'm not too concerned about that, either.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nebben
How about providing the option to NOT store these backups?

That's what is 'sloppy'. You can disable System Restore, or lessen the space it uses, but you have no option (to my knowledge) to control the WU backups.

I thought there was an option to turn this off...

Considering reverting a major update like a Service Pack doesn't even work half the time, I'd prefer to not waste almost a gig of space on a backup.

I've never had an issue with this that wasn't my fault or the fault of crappy hardware.

Windows 95 used like 10MB of RAM in itself. WinXP uses a hundred or two MB. For what? Some of it is useful features, yes, but the bulk of it is junk. I have no problem with all of the features being available, but I'd like it if I had some choice as to whether or not I want to waste 100+ MB of RAM on junk I don't use.

I thought WinXP used all of your ram... And that's a good thing. 🙂

Buy more ram. There's no reason to have less than 512MB these days, and more is even better (and sometimes useful).

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Nebben
How about providing the option to NOT store these backups?

That's what is 'sloppy'. You can disable System Restore, or lessen the space it uses, but you have no option (to my knowledge) to control the WU backups.

Considering reverting a major update like a Service Pack doesn't even work half the time, I'd prefer to not waste almost a gig of space on a backup.

Windows 95 used like 10MB of RAM in itself. WinXP uses a hundred or two MB. For what? Some of it is useful features, yes, but the bulk of it is junk. I have no problem with all of the features being available, but I'd like it if I had some choice as to whether or not I want to waste 100+ MB of RAM on junk I don't use.

RAM is a lot cheaper and more plentiful than it was in 1995. You can utilize that RAM for caching and other performance tweaks as well as adding features. Most of the added visual effects and extra features can be disabled for older hardware. They're turned on by default probably because those are the features that most users prefer to have.

If you want streamlined, dig up your old 486 with 8 MB of RAM and fire up DOS 6.2. 😛

 

[Nebben]

Windows has always has issues reverting to previous versions of anything; not everyone experiences problems, but you can't just blame it on the hardware.

I thought WinXP used all of your ram... And that's a good thing.

Yes, it utilizes all available RAM as opposed to the memory limitations of older Windows, but that's not what I'm talking about. I have 512MB of RAM, and I'm running very few programs at once, and my memory is not approaching it's limitations but it's a lot closer than it should be.

When all that's being used is basic browsing and display functionality, networking, and the bare basics of Windows, I fail to understand why we're talking 100MB or more of used RAM upon boot-up. NOTHING is starting with Windows, and I have disabled many features. On a fresh install, it's closer to 200MB used.

Most of the added visual effects and extra features can be disabled for older hardware. They're turned on by default probably because those are the features that most users prefer to have.

Most of the added visual effects and extra features can be disabled for older hardware. They're turned on by default probably because those are the features that most users prefer to have.

My computer was built using components released after XP came out, so I'd not consider that 'old hardware.' I'm not running on a Pentium 66 here and complaining because it's slow. I'm on an AthlonXP 1700+ with 512MB... it's not blazing fast, but it should have near-instantaneous response times when browsing and opening small programs.

Most of this slowdown was only present after installing SP2, if I was unclear about that.

And if most users prefer to see their windows animate for 2 seconds rather than open the folder immediately, I cry for them. (Although it's probably true)

How about a simple choice during the initial setup of XP: Fast, or Slow and Animated?

 

[rbrandon]

Good God, if I have to hear one more complaint about "Micro$oft is teh sUk, SP2 st0l3 my megahurtz', my heads gonna explode.

People post asinine comments about how XP sucks, but never take the time to learn how to change the things they don't like.


Don't like the Fisher Price look? Change it to Windows Classic. Still too slow? Right click my computer, properties, advanced, perfomance, set windows for best performance. Eye candy gone, have a nice day.

Windows is too bloated? Delete all the $NTSP folders. There only there if you need to roll back patches, which you shouldnt be doing anyway unless one of them breaks something. SP2 takes up too much space? Learn to read, it gives you the option whether or not to archive files. Don't. System Restore taking up too much space? Turn it off you really think you don't need it. Still not enough space? Suck it up and buy a bigger harddrive, they're cheap.


Now before you kill me by saying your hardware if blazing fast, let me tell you i had almost the same exact setup as you:

Athlon XP 1700+, 768 megs of ram, and a 40 gig HD. Guess what, two years ago called, it wants its hardware back.


Seems to me that the problem is between the keyboard, chair. and box.. Don't blame Microsoft for something thats not its fault.

 

[drag]

AMD 1700+ is plenty fast, unless you want to play Doom3. 512 is plenty RAM, too. Most of the world can't afford to constantly upgrade their computer, and shouldn't have too either. If he had 256megs, it would do him good to upgrade, but 512 is just about as much as you'd ever want for the time being for normal deskto puse.

(my laptop is my main computer right now, and it has 386megs of RAM/2.0gig Pentium4-m/20gig 4500rpm drive and I have no issues with it speed wise. But then again I am not using WinXP.)

WinXP hasn't degraded, though. It's just 4 years old and is beginning to show it's age. It has been one of the most insecure operating systems ever made and the steps that Microsoft had to go thru to attempt to change it around with a single service pack are going to cause some issues, but the benifits out weigh the costs by a factor of 10 to 1.

Just learn how to slim down your OS to fit your hardware, and then maybe add another 256 megs of RAM. If you have a older harddrive maybe it's time to upgrade that, too. That will make a difference in speed. A 120meg 7200rpm laptop with 8meg cache from somebody like Maxtor is fairly cheap if you get the OEM version.

Don't worry to much, though. Microsoft says that it will have it's next desktop OS out in 2 years or so. So you dont' have THAT long to wait till you get something new. It would also be a nice time to upgrade your hardware. 😛

 

[hopejr]

what drag said.
I have XP SP2 running on an AMD K6-2 533MHz machine with 64 MB RAM. I complained a lot about it, but I shouldn't. It's not got enough memory. Even with all the settings turned off so it's virtually windows 2k, it still chugs. But that's the way it is.
Window 2k3 on the other hand is great for really old computers like mine. I have it running on a P2 350MHz with 198MB RAM. Its is sooooo fast and not a moments trouble more than you would generally have with the stability of Windows.
OS X on the other hand is getting faster the more they update it 😛 Well it seems like it anyway.

 

[w00t]

unistall sp2 i had the same problem. sp2 when i get my new comp or windows 64 when it comes lol.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: rbrandon
Good God, if I have to hear one more complaint about "Micro$oft is teh sUk, SP2 st0l3 my megahurtz', my heads gonna explode.

People post asinine comments about how XP sucks, but never take the time to learn how to change the things they don't like.


Don't like the Fisher Price look? Change it to Windows Classic. Still too slow? Right click my computer, properties, advanced, perfomance, set windows for best performance. Eye candy gone, have a nice day.

Windows is too bloated? Delete all the $NTSP folders. There only there if you need to roll back patches, which you shouldnt be doing anyway unless one of them breaks something. SP2 takes up too much space? Learn to read, it gives you the option whether or not to archive files. Don't. System Restore taking up too much space? Turn it off you really think you don't need it. Still not enough space? Suck it up and buy a bigger harddrive, they're cheap.


Now before you kill me by saying your hardware if blazing fast, let me tell you i had almost the same exact setup as you:

Athlon XP 1700+, 768 megs of ram, and a 40 gig HD. Guess what, two years ago called, it wants its hardware back.


Seems to me that the problem is between the keyboard, chair. and box.. Don't blame Microsoft for something thats not its fault.

Is he experiencing a PEBKAC error?

 

[batmang]

Originally posted by: rbrandon
Good God, if I have to hear one more complaint about "Micro$oft is teh sUk, SP2 st0l3 my megahurtz', my heads gonna explode.

People post asinine comments about how XP sucks, but never take the time to learn how to change the things they don't like.


Don't like the Fisher Price look? Change it to Windows Classic. Still too slow? Right click my computer, properties, advanced, perfomance, set windows for best performance. Eye candy gone, have a nice day.

Windows is too bloated? Delete all the $NTSP folders. There only there if you need to roll back patches, which you shouldnt be doing anyway unless one of them breaks something. SP2 takes up too much space? Learn to read, it gives you the option whether or not to archive files. Don't. System Restore taking up too much space? Turn it off you really think you don't need it. Still not enough space? Suck it up and buy a bigger harddrive, they're cheap.


Now before you kill me by saying your hardware if blazing fast, let me tell you i had almost the same exact setup as you:

Athlon XP 1700+, 768 megs of ram, and a 40 gig HD. Guess what, two years ago called, it wants its hardware back.


Seems to me that the problem is between the keyboard, chair. and box.. Don't blame Microsoft for something thats not its fault.

i couldnt have said it better myself..

also... disable the system restore.

if your gonna complain about winxp, go use linux. winxp > any os.

 

[jo1]

Originally posted by: Nebben
Windows 98 was never complete and they just jumped onto a whole new project of making everything look cute and pretty for the new computer buyers rather than fixing their product and making it more stable and secure.

i :heart: 98

but where is 98te? (98 third edition)

Microsoft should have continued with 98 but they chose to go a different route

and

XP is a setback...

i tried XP

i click on the start button...

reboot

`sigh

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: jo1
and

XP is a setback...

i tried XP

i click on the start button...

reboot

`sigh

Sorry man but the problem is either hardware or PEBKAC. WinXP has been flawlessly deployed on umpteen systems.

 

[jo1]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Sorry man but the problem is either hardware or PEBKAC. WinXP has been flawlessly deployed on umpteen systems.

it was not hardware or PEBKAC, this is the nature of the XP base

this base bleeds through XP's 'pretty' UI

and this is the wreckage that is XP

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Originally posted by: rbrandon
People post asinine comments about how XP sucks, but never take the time to learn how to change the things they don't like.

Apparently (to those who actually read the original post) Nebben knows how to turn these things off. His complaint was that he has to do these things since the OS is designed to be usable by idiots (and to help maintain that idiot status, but I digress). There isn't an easy, preconfigured setup he can choose to install instead of the default "I don't know the difference between an internet and a mouse" setup.

Good God, if I have to hear one more complaint about "Micro$oft is teh sUk, SP2 st0l3 my megahurtz', my heads gonna explode.

So why did you click on the thread if you didn't want to hear it? The title was a dead giveaway.

 

[Nebben]

Originally posted by: AnonymouseUser

Originally posted by: rbrandon
People post asinine comments about how XP sucks, but never take the time to learn how to change the things they don't like.

Apparently (to those who actually read the original post) Nebben knows how to turn these things off. His complaint was that he has to do these things since the OS is designed to be usable by idiots (and to help maintain that idiot status, but I digress). There isn't an easy, preconfigured setup he can choose to install instead of the default "I don't know the difference between an internet and a mouse" setup.

Good God, if I have to hear one more complaint about "Micro$oft is teh sUk, SP2 st0l3 my megahurtz', my heads gonna explode.

So why did you click on the thread if you didn't want to hear it? The title was a dead giveaway.

Thanks for replying for me. 😉

I have XP as streamlined as possible, but I don't understand the design logic behind making an OS that requires you to change hundreds of settings to get it to run fast. Win98 had things left to be desired, but those things WERE NOT pretty buttons and animations for Windows Explorer. Those new features were added for a reason, and I suspect it's $$$.

And WinXP is not "the greatest operating system of all time", to whoever said that. You're nuts. It IS pretty stable, I am glad they've achieved that, but it is not efficient and it is not streamlined, or even very streamlineable.

Tell me, if XP is the best OS ever, why does it seem to have more security holes than anything in history? Are the lowlives that design worms and spyware just getting better?

MS seems to take the approach that even if their current project isn't complete in terms of stability, speed, efficiency, and security, if that magic number of a few years is reached it's time to release a new one with some NEW bugs. And that's what my post was about. I hate their design approach in that sense, but I have little choice if I want access to every program I want to use. Unless I start running Windows emulators on Linux or something.

Windows is too bloated? Delete all the $NTSP folders. There only there if you need to roll back patches, which you shouldnt be doing anyway unless one of them breaks something. SP2 takes up too much space? Learn to read, it gives you the option whether or not to archive files. Don't. System Restore taking up too much space? Turn it off you really think you don't need it. Still not enough space? Suck it up and buy a bigger harddrive, they're cheap.

Where does SP2 give me the option to not back up 600MB of files? Please enlighten me.

I have ordered a new HD, but that's just it -- why did I have to?



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