BS: Better think twice

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 10:15 AM

When I ordered this new confuser I had never heard of windows xp professional, so, there is no way I could have known what I was getting. Give me credit for SOME brains, Grab! One can't know what one doesn't know. I bought this from a friend who is in the computer business; he has taken it back to re program it for win98. I could have saved us both a lot of trouble if he had told me what he was going to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 09:54 AM

I've thought thrice and will go with more bang for my buck and get a PC.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 09:50 AM

All too true about Netscape and Mozilla. However Opera is free and faster than IE.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Grab
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 09:17 AM

Just got XP on my work PC. It's all rather "Teletubbies Do Windows". Ho hum. The following might be useful for turning off some "features"...

If you go to Control Panel, System, Advanced and select Performance Settings, you can turn on/off a lot of strange stuff like menus sliding and things.

To stop it looking Teletubbyish, go to Control Panel, Display and tweak stuff in there. The theme "Windows Classic" changes some stuff to look more normal. The appearance "Windows Classic" makes everything look like normal Win95/98/NT. In appearance, selecting Effects lets you turn off some more strange stuff, and selecting Advanced lets you change icon sizes and spacings, and other good stuff.

Kendall, why did you expect to go back to Win98? You chose to buy a PC with WinXP, didn't you? You can try asking the vendor to change you over, but Microsoft don't have any say over it, it's entirely your problem. Suppose you bought a Ford Taurus, and later decided you actually wanted a Ford Focus - you can try going back to the dealer and exchanging, but ringing Ford isn't going to do any good, is it? I'm afraid "well DOH!" is the only adequate response...

Dicho, the big switch to everything being XP-only ain't likely to happen soon. There's simply too many older PCs out there, so Microsoft wouldn't be so dumb as to cut out that revenue stream. Besides, "XP-only" only applies to low-level software - device drivers and suchlike. Everything else doesn't give a damn what version of Windows it uses, so long as it's not Win 3.11.

I don't have a big problem with WinXP. I will say it's a damn sight more stable than Win98 - I've yet to have it crash, where Win98 died a couple of times a day. And I prefer IE, since Netscape and Mozilla are nothing short of dreadful - if you thought Microsoft meant slow and buggy, you ain't seen nothing till you run Netscape or Mozilla!

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Metchosin
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 07:54 PM

Thanks for the info John and misophist. Its up and running on its own again, go figure! She spent a week trying to do a software restore and get the thing to accept a systems disk, without any luck and then somehow it cured itself.

Fortunately we now burn back ups regularly. Learned that painful lesson already, after a couple of zip disks packed it in.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: pattyClink
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 08:55 AM

Pack it up, take it back, while you still can. If it's from a big box retailer, they routinely get a number of these back within the initial 15 or 30-day period. Happens every day, they know a certain percentage of them aren't broke, just weren't what the customer wanted or could use. Just tell them it crashes all the time or whatever is driving you nuts. It's not your problem to prove anything, it is their job to eat it if the customer isn't happy.

If you bought through an individual local dealer, he can in turn send it back to the manufacturer, or sell it again for less as 'like new'. Or, faced with that prospect, he will magically 'find' a copy of 98 and set you up the way you want to be. Or, if he's an ass and his 'policy' is not to take things back, if it was on a credit card you can refuse to pay the charge and basically force him to take it back.

You could start over with an apple or linux system if you've had it with paying Gates. There's also more than one windows 'clone' OS out there, one is called 'Lindows'. if you have access to a local guru he might have fund setting you up with one of these.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Apr 02 - 06:28 AM

Kendal, don't you OWN a copy of 98? Don't you OWN a copy of WordPerfect?

Buy it from someone else. There are a kagillion copies out there.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 11:41 AM

Metchosin: If the hard drive was diagnosed as bad by the SMART feature in your bios, it may be OK after all. Everybody says the system is perfect but I've had 2 drives marked as bad and they're still in use months later. Do regular back ups, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 09:22 PM

Now I find that I have lost corel word perfect. DAMN!

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 01:48 PM

Metchosin -

There's really no significant "mechanical" difference between Mac and PC hard drives. The same guys pretty much make them all.

You are probably just a victim of random statistical failure here. - As in the bread always fall butter side down in my house, but I have a friend in whose home it wouldn't dare land any way but butter side up.

The one thing that most commonly causes of "premature" hard drive failure is moving the computer while the drive is running. This can include moving it while the drive is turned off but is still "coasting." Even if you don't relocate the machine, just "scooting" it out of the way carries some risk.

Note that the warning on movement does apply to laptop/portable devices, although they do use significantly more rugged drives. The worst condition is a "sharp bump" or vibration.

The last time I looked - which admittedly was some time ago, the drive manufacturers quoted "MTBF" (Mean-time-between-failures) for hard drives in the 10K (10,000) hour, 30K, or 100K range (depending on which brand of statistical lies they prefer). A year is, roughly, 6K hours. This means that on the average, half of all hard drives should die in about a year and a half. They seem actually to do somewhat better than that - my average is about 4.5 yrs (1.5 to 11 years spread) on the ones I've driven until they crashed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Metchosin
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 01:04 PM

Peg and Amos, usually I'm a big fan of Macs, but for the second time in its young life, my daughter's IMac (we own it, she uses it) has been diagnosed with a defective hard drive. Never had trouble with our G3, so what gives on this little lemon?

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 12:52 PM

misophist -

A CD reader drive can use a slave channel on the EIDE, like a floppy drive; but if you have a CD-R/W or DVD, it normally requires one of the "master" channels, as does the hard drive. This leaves you with no place to hook up another hard drive, unless you add another card.

There may be CD "burners" that can use a slave channel, but the ones that I've seen ask to be installed on a master EIDE channel. There are also other kinds of controllers ("Firewire" is popular now), and some manufacturers are using them for the CD-R/W, but this usually means they have already added the "extra" card, or have installed the necessary components on the motherboard.

The "cheap-out" method is to use USB for the burner, but USB cannot operate above about 12X(?) drive speed while the "current" standard for CD-R/W is in the 20X - 24X range. Again, there is a move to "super USB" but the standards are still sort of floating around.

Various manufacturers are using different methods to stuff more peripherals in the box. I have not found one recently that will ship with both CD-R/W and DVD, because either one of these uses the "available" master EIDE channel. I haven't asked recently, but I suspect that you would have to leave the "burner" out if you wanted a "factory new" PC with two (physical) hard drives.

"Your mileage may vary," of course. My comment above was simply a reminder that you do need to be aware of where the "blockages" may be, in order to check what you can do with your own system.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Peg
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:31 AM

re: Mac longevity. My friends who swear by them have done very well over the years. Those of you who know the work of webmaster Fritz Jung (the wizard behind The Witches' Voice) may also know he is a Mac snob from way back...

For people doing work with graphics and art, they really are best. If you are doing a lot of database stuff, some recommend the PC; but then you have the Windows problem, still.

I bought a refurbished iMac from www.smalldog.com. A nice small company in Vermont. Buying a refurbished machine (to save $400) was a big mistake. It had serious problems with the analog video thingie and eventually caused the hard drive to crash. It was repaired under warranty but it took me a whole month to get it back from the shop. And the company would not simply give me a new one (though clearly their promise that refurbished machines were thoroughly checked out etc. was wrong in this case) because the repair was covered by warranty. However I DO think they are a great company to deal with; they were very responsive and willing to find different ways to help me if the repairs did not fix the problem.

The only problem I ever have now is occasionally the mouse or screen freezes; and since I use AOL, the AOL web browser crashes quite a lot; but that is AOL's fault, I think...

The iMac needs a memory upgrade as soon as you get it in order to do all the cool stuff Jeff Goldblum says you can do (desktop video and DVD etc.) but this is easy enough to purchase and install (that said I have not done it yet). Also it is a good idea to get a CD burner/disk writer since this one only has one CD drive and that's it; not very useful for copying information and using it elsewhere.

A new one of this model I have (with 54K modem) costs probably around $1200 now (around $1400 at the time I got mine). The newer model is of course more expensive. The iMac is quite user-friendly, too.

Oh, and since someone will ask: Sage.

Peg

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: mack/misophist
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 10:05 AM

I'm afraid JohnInKansas is wrong about one thing. I have 2 cd drives and 2 hard drives. There ARE only 2 eide slots but each one accepts a master and a slave, just check the drive for the correct jumper settings.CDROM and CD-RW on one ribbon cable and 2 hd's on the other. DON'T use cable select. If you have a Compaq you may be out of luck, they're wierd.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 08:21 AM

Actually, that was quite clever Guest Cynic; I'll probably use it myself. Too bad I dont know who I should credit for giving it to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 11:32 PM

LOL, Kendall! Just work over the menus for a while and you'll find where all the buttons are sooner or later. There is also always the RTFM approach, except I am sure they never sent yyou one. But you can find plenty of documentation by opportunistic techies with English degrees in any bookstore.

And don't take it as a personal affront -- even GOOD OSes are complex and several times removed from normal human intelligence, obscured by strange vocabulary, impossible acronyms and an absolute constraint to adhere to an irrational logic.

If it weren't for whatever English speakers they hire to write the interface (doncha love that word? We didn't need it before the computer revolution!) we'd all be swimming in confusion and nevert get anything done at all!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 09:55 PM

I'm not against change. However, change for the sake of change (or to make Bill Gates even richer) pisses me off. Know how Helen Keller's parents punished her? They re arranged the furniture.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: GUEST,cynic
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 08:40 PM

Ya'll are wasting time trying to teach an old dog new tricks. When opportunity knocks, Kendall complains about the noise!

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 08:33 PM

A will be your floppy disk, c and d are probably the 2 halves of the hard drive and e would be the CD drive. I'm not sure about f, unless you have both a CD and a DVD drive. Try hitting the Windows key...the one that looks like a flag...and the "e" key at once. That will call up something Microsoft calls "My Computer" (like it was somebody else's computer!!). That will, among other things, define what each number means. The hard drive is probably called "local disk (C:)" and "local disk (D:). From there you're on your own.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 08:30 PM

kendall

A "partition" just means that your drive is split up into more than one "chunk," with each chunk looking like a separate hard drive. You use the machine as if it had more than one "hard drive" even though there is only one piece of machinery there.

Your system can "recognize" up to 26 drives. By splitting the "physical" drive into several smaller "logical" drives, you can separate different programs and data, and you may get some advantages with respect to the actual amount of stuff you can put in the space available.

It's kinda like having a tablet - you rip it apart at the seam, and then you have two tablets, or two different places to write stuff. Of course each of the new ones is smaller than the original....

John

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 08:10 PM

The guy who built this thing said something about a partition; it has a 20 gig hard drive partitioned into 2 drives a c d e &f. I dont have a clue what that means.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 07:36 PM

BTW, (*=98

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 07:36 PM

My old PC died, and I bought a new Dell with most of the bells and whistles last October. The only major problem was that it came with Windows ME loaded, and that thing died at least three times a day. My upgrade to XP-Home finally came last month, and I couldn't be happier. All of my hardware and software either worked immediately or there was a free upgrade available. Knock wood.

I don't have a clue how to do it, but I understand that it's possible to partition (divide) your hard drive and run XP on one part and (* on the other. There was a long thread a few months ago Click here that might answer a few questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 07:28 PM

I could probably live with the upgrade, but, they re arranged everything so I cant find anything! Tiny icons, strange icons, damn them! I just got a link that says I cant uninstall xp. Now, "Who is the potter, and who is the pot"?

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Amergin
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 07:06 PM

yeah but we all knew that....they've been trying for years....

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 06:59 PM

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. - Joseph Campbell

I have heard many scary things about XP....it 'may' be more stable and do more tricks, but it looks like M$ is gradually changing Windows to have more control over YOU, and making it harder to run non-M$ browsers and such.

If you read the 'tech oriented' newsgroups, you see complaints everyday as guys who KNOW debate the details. I do not pretend to understand all the fine points, but it is clear that XP is a serious step on the way to a strangle hold on the industry! As Windows, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, etc, keep becoming more & more interdependant, out options get fewer.

Ok, so not everyone agrees with me..I'd bet $5 that they will in 5 years!.....

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: SharonA
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 04:44 PM

"No blue screen of death -- ever." Well, no, just the grey-blue blank screen of coma, sometimes, or the "beat-up Mac face" with x's for its eyes and with its tongue hanging out!

Even so, I'm wih Peg: get a Mac, make more payments, and remain sane.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Amos
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 04:43 PM

They absolutely have a lower life cycle cost of ownership. An IMAC running OS X would probably just keep on ticking for you until you keeled over!! Some of the upgrades in application are managed the same way they are in the Intel world (by the big companies) but OS Upgrades are essentially no-cost downloads that execute automatically when invit4ed to do so.

The OS is FAR better than XP and ahead of W2K, which I have used happily at work, in a lot of ways.

The OS is very friendly for the plain vanilla user (once familiarized0 and also veryfriendly to the super-geek, but in a way that doesn't intrude on ordinary app-level use.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 04:37 PM

Can't afford to. Mac's are, yes, probably better, but they are more expensive. Do you find that they have longevity, Peg ? That is, are life cycle costs less ?

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Peg
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 04:17 PM

sell the darn thing and get a Mac! No blue screen of death--ever.

Come over to the dark side......

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:45 PM

Tks John.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:36 PM

gnu

Check your "operating manual" on the new PC. If it tells you how to add a hard drive, then it shouldn't be any concern to them if its a new one or an old one.

Very few PC manufacturers will void warrenty based on installation of peripherals, if they're anything remotely close to standard. But check your own terms, of course.

A more likely problem - many new PCs are coming out with CD burners, which often use one of the two "channels" available on your IDE or EIDE card. If you have an EIDE CD-R/W and a hard drive, you don't have anyplace to plug in another hard drive without adding another EIDE card - and you don't have the IRQ & DMA resources for that, unless your PlugNPlay can alias something. It gets "iffy."

Incidentally, I have 1 Win95 laptop, 2 Win98 desktops, one Win2000Pro desktop, and a laser printer all happily sharing files on a 10BaseT ethernet. If you run your old programs under Win98 on your "cheapie" PC, the files should be "tradeable" across the LAN. But if your new XP machine can't run a program from its own hard drive, it won't run the program from the LAN.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: SharonA
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:31 PM

kendall: This is not an example of why life is so friggin' complicated; it's an example of why Bill Gates is so friggin' rich! Why do we all sit back and let ourselves be gouged??

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Amergin
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:25 PM

whenever I finally get around to replacing my computer i will be getting another HD and put one of the older systems on it....so that I can use my software....

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Kim C
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:24 PM

Today I realized that not everyone in my office is running the same version of Office. I have 98, some have 2000, and at least one has XP (which I didn't know - I thought she had 2000). So I thought, well, I'll check and see what it would cost for us to upgrade to 2000.

Can't upgrade to 2000. Have to upgrade to XP.

Oh well.

Give it a chance, Kendall, maybe it will grow on you... like a barnacle or something....... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: gnu
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:20 PM

My old PC died. The power supply went, so I went out and got a new PC with XP Home Version and it sucks too. It did a task ABC yesterday, but today it's doing the same task XYZ. It constantly sends stuff from the recycle bin back to programs when it shouldn't, etc, etc, etc. And, most of my old software won't work in XP, so I will have to upgrade.... at a cost of thousandsss of dollars. MS doesn't give a crap and the other software companies just say, "We don't support that version anymore, sir."

I'm going to get a second, cheap, PC, install the old hard drive, and network the two to see if I can access the old operating system and software... anyone know if that might work, or am I throwing money away ?

BTW, the reason for another PC is to avoid warranty issues with installing the old hard drive in the new one. It's an HP pavillion 750n... too expensive to even think of voiding the warranty. Or am I wrong here, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:17 PM

kendall

You have my full sympathy.

I haven't been forced to XP - yet. But most of the reports are pretty good. It is, reportedly, much more stable and more resistant to some of the nasty tricks people(?) like to play on you.

Since I haven't seen it, I can't be very specific, but there are usually quite a few things you can do to "use older interfaces." You might take a look at display adjustments to get some of the Win98 feel back before you just trash it all.

Another thing that may be pertinent. If you got WinXP-Pro, did you also get Office or Office-Pro? The XP versions have vastly improved capability with respect to funny characters like those discussed so often in the html practice threads - I'm told. And those new versions won't run on Win98.

I know the frustration, but it's sort of like a new girlfriend. You've got to find out a little bit about her, if you expect to have a relationship.

Deep breath, curse softly, and then take a good look at it before you back off.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Amergin
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:14 PM

kendall...you can look at computer shops online for 98....sure some one still carries it....it was a damn sight better than me and 95...

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: MMario
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:13 PM

Kendall - check your desktop settings - you may be able to set it to "classic windows"

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Devilmaster
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:11 PM

To get the classic look from XP, hit start, right click on your username up top, click properties and pick classic menu.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:09 PM

I suppose I will get used to it, but, it is drastically different from 98.

Subject: RE: BS: Better think twice
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 03:05 PM

Anyone you can borrow the 98 discs from? The computer technician who helps me from time to time says he prefers and is sticking with 98. What worries me is that other software programs (photo, etc.) will soon be available only for the new xp.

Subject: Better think twice
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 02:48 PM

I just bought a new computer, and, it is loaded with windows xp professional. It sucks! I hate it, and, all I get from Microsoft is gobbledegook. They tell me I cant go back to windows 98 because it never existed on this computer. They also say I have to buy the 98 cd and uninstall xp. Naturally I cant get 98 locally because it is obsolete! Why do they have to make life so friggin' complicated?