Win 3.1 < Win 95 < Win XP Home < Win XP Pro < Win 2000 < Win ME < Win 98SE
Although XP itself may hardly ever lock up compared to 98se, apps lock up more, so XP's hardiness is of dubious benefit to ordinary users. The lockups can be chalked up to XPs less mature implementation of the Windows API. MS was trying to marry two different concepts of what an OS should be, which is why it took so long to converge Windows and NT, and they haven't quite succeeded yet. Also, the registery in XP is more prone to screw-ups than 98se, and the screw-ups are even more impossible to track down. Plus, the Windows security problem exploded out of control with the advent of XP, and the gradual conversion of hackers to it, and their increasing knowledge of its internals. It is safe to predict the onslaught has barely begun, because the hackers are still in the exploratory stage. It is, no doubt, because of XP's prodigious capabilty to respond over the network as if the control were coming from on-board. Try spawning a process on W98se through hacked security over the network. Huh? In W98se you had to trick a user into running a program he thought was something else. Not necessary with XP. Even with the patches up to SP1, Blaster can have itself running on your computer within 5 minutes of dialing MSN.
Compared to Windows on the w9x track, XP is a mess for ordinary users to administer, which is something home users have to do. When an install program botches something, and it seems like a lot of them do in XP, you might as well hang it up. It is format and reinstall time, after you waste a week, and only succeed in digging yourself in deeper. That's XP. It's not so much that 98se has less mistakes in it (bugs), although it may, but that in XP it is impossible to recover from them, or work around them. Making XP impervious would be fine if XP were perfect, but it is far from that.
I converted to XP some time ago (after using it as a secondary OS from its intro), because I think it is about time to accept the inevitable, but I never anticipated the screwy, intractible problems it would bring. Compared to 98se, XP is a POS, the way ordinary users use their computers.
Now, I'm not saying XP doesn't have a lot of nice things that come with it. I don't mind the way it looks; its OK, and you can change the apperance if you prefer.
Wme, I think is OK, it you never change things. When Wme crashes, it is liable to silently "restore" itself, and royally screw things up so bad it is hopeless. The one time I truely needed to use the "recovery" capability, it gave me an error: something like "Unknown error. Recovery cancelled." Thanks a lot! And that explanation was so helpful!
Win 3.1 < Win 95 < Win XP Home < Win XP Pro < Win 2000 < Win ME < Win 98SE
Although XP itself may hardly ever lock up compared to 98se, apps lock up more, so XP's hardiness is of dubious benefit to ordinary users. The lockups can be chalked up to XPs less mature implementation of the Windows API. MS was trying to marry two different concepts of what an OS should be, which is why it took so long to converge Windows and NT, and they haven't quite succeeded yet. Also, the registery in XP is more prone to screw-ups than 98se, and the screw-ups are even more impossible to track down. Plus, the Windows security problem exploded out of control with the advent of XP, and the gradual conversion of hackers to it, and their increasing knowledge of its internals. It is safe to predict the onslaught has barely begun, because the hackers are still in the exploratory stage. It is, no doubt, because of XP's prodigious capabilty to respond over the network as if the control were coming from on-board. Try spawning a process on W98se through hacked security over the network. Huh? In W98se you had to trick a user into running a program he thought was something else. Not necessary with XP. Even with the patches up to SP1, Blaster can have itself running on your computer within 5 minutes of dialing MSN.
Compared to Windows on the w9x track, XP is a mess for ordinary users to administer, which is something home users have to do. When an install program botches something, and it seems like a lot of them do in XP, you might as well hang it up. It is format and reinstall time, after you waste a week, and only succeed in digging yourself in deeper. That's XP. It's not so much that 98se has less mistakes in it (bugs), although it may, but that in XP it is impossible to recover from them, or work around them. Making XP impervious would be fine if XP were perfect, but it is far from that.
I converted to XP some time ago (after using it as a secondary OS from its intro), because I think it is about time to accept the inevitable, but I never anticipated the screwy, intractible problems it would bring. Compared to 98se, XP is a POS, the way ordinary users use their computers.
Now, I'm not saying XP doesn't have a lot of nice things that come with it. I don't mind the way it looks; its OK, and you can change the apperance if you prefer.
Wme, I think is OK, it you never change things. When Wme crashes, it is liable to silently "restore" itself, and royally screw things up so bad it is hopeless. The one time I truely needed to use the "recovery" capability, it gave me an error: something like "Unknown error. Recovery cancelled." Thanks a lot! And that explanation was so helpful!
