Less is more Pro (for Windows it seems)

[ShadeX]

Tough the thread on w2k vs wxp was never intended to focus on that, it raised some funny points.

Apparently, the tech/geek/power users seem to go for "less is more" aproach over "os features/apps". More savy ppl seem to want more control over what they get installed as default, apps and feature wise. Avg users seem to want more features built-in and pre-installed.

If this was found to be true, we might eventually have a Windows Something Pro wich actually had LESS stuff built-in/installed from start than Windows Something Home. This would look weird, but not untrue. The usual (and more usual since XP/MacOSX) OS app set IS home user driven. Tech/Power users find little to gain from them.

But if it come to that, WinSomethingPro would become cheaper to make than WinSomethingHome. Now wouldnt that be weird????

Funny tough it reminds me of Linux/AmigaOS. Avg users would install the full N CD's distro set, with every app and its mother going into the HD at install time. Power users would strip the OS to a barebones minimum and work their way up from there.

Comments on this one?

 

[n0cmonkey]

As a non-power user, I don't mind a bit of extra software installed. I like having a choice in what is installed by default, but if my only choice is leave it there or do something extra to get rid of it, I'll just leave it there.

 

[THUGSROOK]

i hate all the extra garb installed by default.

my WinXP is so hacked up (hacked down?) that upon bootup it only says WindowsX!
i have every single one of WinXP's (so called) "features" disabled, removed, or hacked out of existance.
default WinXP is like AOL to me.... for lazy unknowledgable n00bies that dont know squat.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
default WinXP is like AOL to me.... for lazy unknowledgable n00bies that dont know squat.

I resent that statement. I run a "default" XP install on my system, and I don't consider myself lazy, unknowledgeable or a "n00b".

Frankly, after helping out some of the self-proclaimed "power users" on these forums, I'm unconvinced that Windows "tweaks" help anything at all. The majority of Windows tweaks that I've seen are either:

a. Misinformation about low-level operating systems functions that spread like wildfire among uninformed "power users". Virtual memory settings tweaks ("how do I remove my pagefile? I have a GB of RAM!") fall into this category.

or

b. Disabling or removing services that "hog resources." Most Windows services have little to no impact on general performance, and disabling them only causes random errors to occur down the road that are difficult to troubleshoot (e.g. running Windows Update).

I know people love to tweak to get those extra 5 fps in their latest game, but for me a lot of the tweaks just aren't worth it. To each their own, I suppose. For me, less tweaking means more stability and less headaches down the road. That's well worth sacrificing a small gain in performance.

P.S. I also appreciate some of XP's built-in features, which often do their job quite well and better than other freeware alternatives. Compressed folders and Windows Media Player are just two examples.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
default WinXP is like AOL to me.... for lazy unknowledgable n00bies that dont know squat.

I resent that statement. I run a "default" XP install on my system, and I don't consider myself lazy, unknowledgeable or a "n00b".

Frankly, after helping out some of the self-proclaimed "power users" on these forums, I'm unconvinced that Windows "tweaks" help anything at all. The majority of Windows tweaks that I've seen are either:

a. Misinformation about low-level operating systems functions that spread like wildfire among uninformed "power users". Virtual memory settings tweaks ("how do I remove my pagefile? I have a GB of RAM!") fall into this category.

or

b. Disabling or removing services that "hog resources." Most Windows services have little to no impact on general performance, and disabling them only causes random errors to occur down the road that are difficult to troubleshoot (e.g. running Windows Update).

I know people love to tweak to get those extra 5 fps in their latest game, but for me a lot of the tweaks just aren't worth it. To each their own, I suppose. For me, less tweaking means more stability and less headaches down the road. That's well worth sacrificing a small gain in performance.

P.S. I also appreciate some of XP's built-in features, which often do their job quite well and better than other freeware alternatives. Compressed folders and Windows Media Player are just two examples.

Newbie.

 

[ShadeX]

MrChad:

If you go through X-Setups reg tweaks, 95% are worthless junk. Doent mean some arent there for good reasons.

Would you do gfx/video works on a cluster 512 partition when mostly you have a couple dozens files in the several hundred MB range? Nope, neither would i. That's performance tweaking.

Would you enable/diable some Win settings through reg, so that the OS becomes "more you"? Yup, so would i. That aesthaetic tweaking.

OTOH, since you use claim an unnmoded WINXP, am i right to assume that you dont have a fixed size pagefile, and let it grow/shrink/frag to WIn's whims?

BTW, you can remove pagefile, but at best Win will feel fuzzy and weird. Eventually it will ignore your wishes and go and make itself a big pagefile when it runs out of mem. EVEN TOUGH YOU TOLD HIM NOT TO!!!

BTW2, wich Media Player? Up to 7 it was pretty much alright, but dont start me on MP9

n0cmonkey:

C'Mon man. You posted a full quote to say noob??? Was it that hard to select a block and hit del???

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ShadeX
MrChad:

If you go through X-Setups reg tweaks, 95% are worthless junk. Doent mean some arent there for good reasons.

Would you do gfx/video works on a cluster 512 partition when mostly you have a couple dozens files in the several hundred MB range? Nope, neither would i. That's performance tweaking.

Never even bothered to care.

Would you enable/diable some Win settings through reg, so that the OS becomes "more you"? Yup, so would i. That aesthaetic tweaking.

Why would I bother with the registry?

OTOH, since you use claim an unnmoded WINXP, am i right to assume that you dont have a fixed size pagefile, and let it grow/shrink/frag to WIn's whims?

Ummm, yeah. Why wouldn't I?

BTW, you can remove pagefile, but at best Win will feel fuzzy and weird. Eventually it will ignore your wishes and go and make itself a big pagefile when it runs out of mem. EVEN TOUGH YOU TOLD HIM NOT TO!!!

Surprise surprise, someone knows more about the OS than you do. :Q

BTW2, wich Media Player? Up to 7 it was pretty much alright, but dont start me on MP9

v10 seems to have brought some people around. I don't care for any of them much.

n0cmonkey:

C'Mon man. You posted a full quote to say noob??? Was it that hard to select a block and hit del???

First I didn't say "noob." I abhor that particular word. Second, yes.

 

[Canterwood]

Really all that needs to be done is when installing XP Pro, the user gets the chance to deselect the apps they don't want. Then you dont' have to jump through hoops, disabling/removing/locking down 'features' you don't want or don't want other people using.

Group Policy has improved in SP2, and gives admin's more control of so called 'features' including internet access for them. Its an improvement, but its better not to force them on people in the first place IMO.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Canterwood
Really all that needs to be done is when installing XP Pro, the user gets the chance to deselect the apps they don't want. Then you dont' have to jump through hoops, disabling/removing/locking down 'features' you don't want or don't want other people using.

Group Policy has improved in SP2, and gives admin's more control of so called 'features' including internet access for them. Its an improvement, but its better not to force them on people in the first place IMO.

I'm not sure why it was necessary to split off this discussion from the other thread, but basically, you've got it right.. I cannot believe that (in so many words) kylef in the other thread was basically claiming that it was beyond MS's techological capabilities to allow the user to choose what components to install.

I spit on MS FUD like that. Quite honestly, it disgusts me.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
default WinXP is like AOL to me.... for lazy unknowledgable n00bies that dont know squat.

I resent that statement. I run a "default" XP install on my system, and I don't consider myself lazy, unknowledgeable or a "n00b".

Frankly, after helping out some of the self-proclaimed "power users" on these forums, I'm unconvinced that Windows "tweaks" help anything at all. The majority of Windows tweaks that I've seen are either:

a. Misinformation about low-level operating systems functions that spread like wildfire among uninformed "power users". Virtual memory settings tweaks ("how do I remove my pagefile? I have a GB of RAM!") fall into this category.

or

b. Disabling or removing services that "hog resources." Most Windows services have little to no impact on general performance, and disabling them only causes random errors to occur down the road that are difficult to troubleshoot (e.g. running Windows Update).

I know people love to tweak to get those extra 5 fps in their latest game, but for me a lot of the tweaks just aren't worth it. To each their own, I suppose. For me, less tweaking means more stability and less headaches down the road. That's well worth sacrificing a small gain in performance.

P.S. I also appreciate some of XP's built-in features, which often do their job quite well and better than other freeware alternatives. Compressed folders and Windows Media Player are just two examples.

Amen

 

[THUGSROOK]

yes, and some ppl use and like AOL too.
that doesnt change my opinion of it.

 

[Smilin]

I know both OSs inside out and like the back of my hand. I'm far from being a newb, casual user or even power user.

I'll choose XP any day over 2000. If you choose differently then you don't know the OSs as well as you think you do.

 

[ShadeX]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
yes, and some ppl use and like AOL too.
that doesnt change my opinion of it.

TG, i dont think that the amount on ppl using AOL and other braindead stuff is a problem. Now, ppl sticking to those same braindead stuff after 3 months or so, thats a problem ,)

n0cmonkey:

Why would I bother with the registry?

OTOH, since you use claim an unnmoded WINXP, am i right to assume that you dont have a fixed size pagefile, and let it grow/shrink/frag to WIn's whims?

Ummm, yeah. Why wouldn't I?

Man, if you really have to ask why on both claims, its not worth the bother for me to even try to explain. Find yourself a nice doc on MFT/pagefiles/clusters/hives/fragmentation and have a nice read. THEN come back.

quote:
BTW, you can remove pagefile, but at best Win will feel fuzzy and weird. Eventually it will ignore your wishes and go and make itself a big pagefile when it runs out of mem. EVEN TOUGH YOU TOLD HIM NOT TO!!!

Surprise surprise, someone knows more about the OS than you do.

??? What on earth does that mean ??? Believe me when i tell you that EVERYTIME Win runs ouf of both RAM AND pagefiles space, I DO WANT the app to stop dead on its tracks with an "Out of mem" error. But then again, you probably never had Win go buck wild on pagefile resizing because of a badly behaved app so you cant appreciate the need for control.

 

[ShadeX]

Originally posted by: Smilin

I know both OSs inside out and like the back of my hand. I'm far from being a newb, casual user or even power user.

I'll choose XP any day over 2000. If you choose differently then you don't know the OSs as well as you think you do.

Wrong thread Smilin ,) But by all means, go to the other one and enlighten us on why whe should want XP and not 2k.

p.s. Tried your sig My AV catches it, but only on manual scan... Why should an AV scan .txt files???

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: ShadeX

Originally posted by: Smilin

I know both OSs inside out and like the back of my hand. I'm far from being a newb, casual user or even power user.

I'll choose XP any day over 2000. If you choose differently then you don't know the OSs as well as you think you do.

Wrong thread Smilin ,) But by all means, go to the other one and enlighten us on why whe should want XP and not 2k.

p.s. Tried your sig My AV catches it, but only on manual scan... Why should an AV scan .txt files???

No.

The topic has been beat to death. There are two kinds of people that stay in those threads:

1. Those that know the right answer but haven't been burned out in previous discussions yet.
2. Those that choose 2k, think they know more than they do, never bother to learn more, are absolute zealots about it and will never admit they are wrong.

I've stated my choice on the topic. If you know me well enough that should be all it takes. If not, I don't really care. I hope you all enjoy the discussion, but I'm not really going to participate. Try to be nice and not flame each other

Also, my sig is just an EICAR string. It only tells you if your AV is on, not how good it is or how it's configured.

 

[pitupepito2000]

I personally don't like a system that has a whole bunch of extra software loaded. The things that I look in an operating system is that it is build by composition, meaning a whole bunch of programs where one program does one (and only one task) and it does it well. I rather have that approach rather than the have it all that is harder to maintain and it doesn't perform as well as a whole bunch of little apps that do their job well.

 

[bsobel]

p.s. Tried your sig My AV catches it, but only on manual scan... Why should an AV scan .txt files???

Copy notepad.exe to notepad.txt. Now go to explorer or a cmd prompt and launch notepad.txt. The result is why you should AV scan .txt files.

Bill

 

[Nothinman]

Man, if you really have to ask why on both claims, its not worth the bother for me to even try to explain. Find yourself a nice doc on MFT/pagefiles/clusters/hives/fragmentation and have a nice read. THEN come back.

Perhaps you should do the same, the pagefile never grows/shrinks on a whim. To get the pagefile to grow you have to page out more data than fits in the minimum size you've set (or windows has guessed) and then the pagefile never shrinks until you reboot. If you have pagefile growth at all you've set your pagefile minimum way too small and/or need to get more memory and even then the fragmentation that it may cause won't affect performance in any noticable way.

??? What on earth does that mean ??? Believe me when i tell you that EVERYTIME Win runs ouf of both RAM AND pagefiles space, I DO WANT the app to stop dead on its tracks with an "Out of mem" error. But then again, you probably never had Win go buck wild on pagefile resizing because of a badly behaved app so you cant appreciate the need for control.

The fact that you think you know better than the OS about how to manage memory just proves that you don't know how VM and paging actually work.

 

[ShadeX]

The fact that you think you know better than the OS about how to manage memory just proves that you don't know how VM and paging actually work.

I wonder how if any of you both actually READ what i wrote... FYI I have 1G RAM, 1x2 GB pagefile on a Seagate ATA100 7200, on a 4G partition cluster size 8192 i use for pagefile and temp files. IF i ever go over 3GB mem needed, THEN something is DEAD WRONG. None of my usual stuff will EVER go above the 1GB physical RAM. Once in a LONG while i might go up to 2.5GB (usually scanning at outrageous resolutions, and working with multilayered images). But that happens once in many moons...

So, when i ask Win to STAY PUT, i know why i want it to do it. Problem is, it doesnt. So, along comes the rogue app with bad mem leaks and awfull mem managemnt. It starts allocating more and more mem. And Win keeps giving more mem to it. Pretty soon i hit the damn pagefile. After a while it outgrows the pagefile. Win ignores my whishes to limit vmem, and grows a temp pagefile in that volume. Volume goes out of free space. Rogue app doesnt stop. Neither does Win. See where it leads?

Now, lets set the record straight. Remeber what the default setting was for 9x? Let Windows decide. Well, Win will decide one way ot the other. In whatever Win you think of, not just 9x. And why is that so? Cause Win is Avg Joe ready, and Avg Joe doesnt have a clue about what vmem is. If Win told Avg Joe to "Windows has run out of mem, please increase pagefile or shutdown other apps", Avg Joe would freak out. Oh, and the fact that the app would prob crash because of running out of mem would probably piss him off even more. So, MS made the call to let Win call the shots. Even if user isnt Avg Joe. Even if user DOESNT WANT IT.

And this is WAY OT. So lets drop the pagefile problems plz...

 

[bsobel]

I wonder how if any of you both actually READ what i wrote... FYI I have 1G RAM, 1x2 GB pagefile on a Seagate ATA100 7200, on a 4G partition cluster size 8192 i use for pagefile and temp files. IF i ever go over 3GB mem needed, THEN something is DEAD WRONG. None of my usual stuff will EVER go above the 1GB physical RAM. Once in a LONG while i might go up to 2.5GB (usually scanning at outrageous resolutions, and working with multilayered images). But that happens once in many moons...

A seperate partition on the same physical volume for the paging file is just dumb, you lose more in head seek time than it's worth.

Volume goes out of free space. Rogue app doesnt stop. Neither does Win. See where it leads?

Wrong. I don't care what the app is doing, it's not gonna be able to allocate more than 2 gig (perhaps 3 if running in that config) before it runs out of address space.

Bill

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ShadeX

n0cmonkey:

Why would I bother with the registry?

OTOH, since you use claim an unnmoded WINXP, am i right to assume that you dont have a fixed size pagefile, and let it grow/shrink/frag to WIn's whims?

Ummm, yeah. Why wouldn't I?

Man, if you really have to ask why on both claims, its not worth the bother for me to even try to explain. Find yourself a nice doc on MFT/pagefiles/clusters/hives/fragmentation and have a nice read. THEN come back.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

quote:
BTW, you can remove pagefile, but at best Win will feel fuzzy and weird. Eventually it will ignore your wishes and go and make itself a big pagefile when it runs out of mem. EVEN TOUGH YOU TOLD HIM NOT TO!!!

Surprise surprise, someone knows more about the OS than you do.

??? What on earth does that mean ??? Believe me when i tell you that EVERYTIME Win runs ouf of both RAM AND pagefiles space, I DO WANT the app to stop dead on its tracks with an "Out of mem" error. But then again, you probably never had Win go buck wild on pagefile resizing because of a badly behaved app so you cant appreciate the need for control.

Microsoft engineers know more about Windows than you do. Get over yourself.

 

[ShadeX]

And pray tell, what makes you think its in the same physical HD? And even if it wasnt, it would still have one advantage at least. The fact that you got to choose WHERE, in the drive that partition is located.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Smilin

I know both OSs inside out and like the back of my hand. I'm far from being a newb, casual user or even power user.

I'll choose XP any day over 2000. If you choose differently then you don't know the OSs as well as you think you do.

Unless you perhaps have a copy of 2k and don't want to spend/can't spend the money for XP.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ShadeX
And pray tell, what makes you think its in the same physical HD? And even if it wasnt, it would still have one advantage at least. The fact that you got to choose WHERE, in the drive that partition is located.

The only benefit for putting the pagefile on a seperate partition/disk that I have come across is for defragment purposes. And even then it's more work than it's worth.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: ShadeX
And pray tell, what makes you think its in the same physical HD? And even if it wasnt, it would still have one advantage at least. The fact that you got to choose WHERE, in the drive that partition is located.

FYI I have 1G RAM, 1x2 GB pagefile on a Seagate ATA100 7200, on a 4G partition cluster size 8192 i use for pagefile and temp files.

Well, you posted your config...

As for the 'advantage'. I don't care where you put the partition, the head seek time kills the benefit.

Bill