My two cents

Exodus · 31 December 2001, 04:55

I read that Twistin' Ghost was not upgrading to Windows XP because of the way that Macrohard designed it. Personally, I don't blame him. I tried XP myself and thought it was very childish. Pretty colors everywhere you look. It's basically a joke. It's just one way that Macrohard attempts to dominate the software market. The fact that you have 30 days to log onto their web site just to register it is absolutely ridiculous. How many of you are pissed of at Macrohard?

I like Windows 98's interface a lot. It's easy to use and does what it is told. It treats me with respect.

Getting to WinUAE now. CodePoet has released 0.8.17/R3, but I'm still using 0.8.8/R8. When the revisions start at 0.8.14, Brian took away "WaveOut Looping" and stuck with "DirectSound Looping". That ruined the whole emulator. When I ran 0.8.14, I have nothing more than choppy sound. Even with 0.8.17/R3, fiddling with the lag compensation does nothing. Why couldn't CodePoet leave the sound alone? I just like to know if any of you have the same problem?

I don't know about you, but I rather stick with 0.8.8/R3. I already complained about this twice. Some suggested that I should upgrade my operating system to Win2K or WinXP (maybe even Win98SE, which I plan to do in the near future). If that doesn't work, tough.

Just my two cents.

Twistin'Ghost · 31 December 2001, 05:21

Yup. Even if XP can be installed with the 'old school' look, even under the surface is nasty things. I don't like having to 'check in' with Microsoft before I can use my computer. And this is required every several programs you install (why? so they can check it all out and make sure you are not pirating? is this a police state or something?) M$ has no respect for privacy nor personal security, as evidenced by countless security holes (including Denial of Service vulnerabilities in even MS SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7.0). XP was released with the same security holes, only worse because additionally these holes allowed hackers to completely take over the machine by recognizing peripheral devices (?!). They refer to it as a buffer overflow vulnerability, and it gives any hacker full privileges. How does something like this get out the door and bypass the 'experts' at MS or the beta testers? It took an independant security consultant firm to find it. And I have already ranted in great detail about the IP stack which is a DOS hacker's dream. It just seems everything MS touches is done so irresponsibly and that gets worse with each revision. I won't go back further than W98SE and I shall go nowhere near XP.

WinUAE is really taking a beating from WinFellow these days. To its credit, however, Toni has been incorporating some really good things into his bit and must be commended. It's what keeps WinUAE in the running and what makes looking at updates worth the trouble. Shame about the sound...

Drake1009 · 31 December 2001, 09:21

XP *shudder* nice looking interface with added lack of privacy, added incompatibility, added money to microslugs and many more features. Ok so it's supposed to be more stable. Well it was about time for something stable to emerge but that doesn't really matter if you don't feel like visiting their web site and get counted among the sheep or if your computer is compromised, that sort of makes it more incompatible.

BTW I was wondering about antivirus? On a 98 machine you can use a dos boot disk with the scanner on it to scan and remove viruses from a deeply infected machine. What do you do if your XP gets infected? I doubt if you're running NTFS that it'd be a good idea to run a DOS program running one of the FAT systems through that harddisk.

As for winUAE. It's still a great emulator. It runs a darn lot, but unfortunately for me I can't use it at full speed which is one of the reasons I prefer to use Winfellow when I can.

Toni Wilen · 31 December 2001, 11:26

In (near?) future UAE's system specific sound, graphics and input device APIs will be replaced with SDL (www.libsdl.org, portable lowlevel graphics, sound and input device API).

I hope this helps with sound problems. (At least SDL supports both directsound and waveout automatically, but "unfortunately" I don't have any problems with sound..)

Exodus · 31 December 2001, 11:57

The thing is with Macrohard is that when they released WinNT to everybody, it was unstable most of the time. It could crash when you least expected. Because of this, MH released at least 5 service packs on their web site. Each service pack users had to install turn out to be more unstable than the last. So when users complained about the instability in SP1, they made SP2. When users complained about that, they released SP3, etc. etc. The point I'm trying to make is they will never make its OS stable. Now I wonder how many SPs they will make for XP.

Apart from this, ever since WinME was released, they continue to copy other people's work, and possibly got sued. Windows Media Player is now just a carbon copy of RealPlayer , just as Windows Movie Maker is a carbon copy of iMovie.

You're right. Codepoet should be congratulated on the excellent work they've done. If they kept going on like this, every piece of Amiga hardware would be completed by the next release. I also have WinFellow, but I don't use it as much. By the way, how long is i until we have a new release? The emulator is so far behnd WinUAE. It has no AGA support, save state support, or CD32/CDTV emulation. I like to see those things get implemented in the next release.

Ian · 31 December 2001, 14:44

The fact remains though that XP is the best version of windows you can buy (Even though that's not saying much), even with all the problems that do exist it's still better than Windows 9x & 2000.

I dislike M$ as much as anyone, but XP is far better than there usual crap.

Most people I know with systems better than the minimum spec (ie >500mhz and at least 128 mb) all agree.

I'm in no way trying to tell anyone to upgrade, that's their choice not mine.

@Drake1009

Norton Makes a set of boot disk's for XP, the same way it does for all the other Windows versions, I imagine most other Antivirus software will do as well.

About WinUAE, it runs fine for me, maybe it's depends on the power of your system, I have three computers here at present, one a 366 celeron (crap sound, but I can make it sound better just by moving the various sliders, which do work), a 750 mhz Athlon and 1800 Athlon XP on both of those it sounds fine.

Comparing (Win)Fellow, with (Win)UAE is unfair to both emu's, Fellow has been designed for speed whereas UAE has been designed for complete compatability (And it's getting there, slowly, but surely), who knows, when/if the (Win)Fellow people start adding features like AGA and other things it's missing over UAE, it might become as unstable as previous (Win)UAE's were.

For me, I just have the latest version of both emu's installed, I don't have any problems with either of them. (Yes that means no system crippling crashes)

Drake1009 · 31 December 2001, 15:41

I'm still staying with win98. It might be that XP is far more stable and has a better look and everything, but it's still missing the ability to be backwards compatible. Win98 has enough of a problem with this.

And you're completely right about Winfellow/WinUAE. Fellow does concentrate on speed which is apparent when you find lacks in the graphics here, missing collision detection there, not too good diskloading over there and so on.

As for crippling crashes. WinUAE has fed me a couple of those but I think they're fixed. I really should try the new version soon. Crippling here meaning that the most I'm able to run graphics wise unless I want to reboot is solitare and minesweeper. But that might as well be a specific problem with my drivers since I've had similar problems with other programs.

7-Zark-7 · 31 December 2001, 17:31

Hear Hear for the comments of Exodus & co. re WinUAE/Win9x/Xp etc.!!
Despite all the hype that some people have been spouting for Win2K to run WinUAE,& Win9x is "dead" etc.,Win2K is not designed with older gaming in mind.
I'm glad WinUAE's coders are finally looking at addressing the sound issues.
From what I read elsewhere on another thread, they dropped the sound system from the best WinUAE 08.8r8 (For Win9x systems),apparently because the UAE coder responsible for it had left the project & noone else knew how to use it.

As for the Winfellow vs. WinUAE arguements-I don't use WinFellow as a general rule, but at least they seem to be working on getting a decent fully functioning OCS/ECS emulator done first.
I think I'd rather see a "finished" (ie: largley gaming etc. compatible),non-aga version done first then worry about an aga-based version later.

As for XP,whilst many older systems can run it, surely it's more optimum to use it with new systems,(P4 or Athlon/Duron etc.). Look at the no. of "legacy driver" & program issues that seem to be part of XP.
I'd suggest a DOS or legacy type programe for XP would help,but I'd imagine MS would squash any DOS emulator!

Twistin'Ghost · 31 December 2001, 17:57

But even if I could make XP look and taste just like W98, there's still the flow of security issues that keep cropping up. This latest hole is just the newest; I suspect there will be more. And that very firm that discovered it had reported the issue to M$ long before XP was released, but as usual, M$ did not care, anymore than their IP stack issue that was reported by other security experts. It just seems that M$ thrives on security holes and privacy intrusions, so each new OS seems to chide away another layer of that and disguises it with added features, speed, compatibility, etc.

Nor would I buy a car from a manufacturer with a reputation for shoddy work and unsafe design issues. I don't doubt that there are some improvements in XP, but all of them I can live without. And I certainly don't want M$ taking over in areas of virus protection and CD burning software (and God knows what other franchise they are trying to squash this season...)

LaundroMat · 31 December 2001, 18:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Twistin' Ghost
This latest hole is just the newest; I suspect there will be more. And that very firm that discovered it had reported the issue to M$ long before XP was released, but as usual, M$ did not care,

They do care, but they prefer people to keep their mouths shut, so that "malignant characters would not be able to abuse the discovery". I say b*ll*cks to that, they should release a secure product, and not blame others when something goes a-miss. I think the problem with MS is that it's too big (a problem some other companies suffer of as well). How can you otherwise explain that the team working on, say, MS Word, is using undocumented API functionalities, so that, when the API's get upgraded (by another team), WinWord is broken? In my opinion, it's impossible to have a 100% clear communication within a mastodontic company (heck, I work in a team of 5, and even in so small a team there are communication failures).
Also, as I said to someone yesterday when I had to reinstall Win98 for the umptieth time: if this PC was another tool (say, a microwave), I would've thrown it out of the window already.

Exodus · 01 January 2002, 00:30

Since I have only a P2/400Mhz sitting at home, I can't upgrade to XP even if I wanted to. I don't really care about security, since I'm not on a network. There are two versions of XP. The Home Edition and the Business Edition. I read that the Businesws Edition is has more stability than the Home Edition.

7-Zark-7 · 03 January 2002, 03:41

Forgive my reading at 90k.p.h. & I misread things, but did I read correctly that even after you've registered XP, if you've installed another "X" number of programs eg; a few games,Anti-virus, WinAmp etc. that XP demands you go to MS's site again?!

It's one thing for any "auto-update" features, but it's quite another if they want your system & program specs too, unless I have a tech-support issue, it's no company's business what your PC has.

Twistin'Ghost · 03 January 2002, 04:48

I agree completely. I'll be curious to see how happy the XP users are after having to repeatedly get a 'locker check' from M$. The fact that the general public bends over and takes this up the ass completely amazes me. I assume then that an internet connection is required for using XP?

TikTok · 03 January 2002, 05:29

IIRC, the box for WinXP states the same as for previous versions: "Internet connection may be required for some features". What, like installing your favourite software, upgrading your graphics card, or using your computer on a Tuesday?

Most people in the UK are still on slow and expensive 56K dialup too, so how they put up with it is beyond me.

7-Zark-7 · 03 January 2002, 05:38

You would think after the Anti-trust lawsuits that MS wouldn't want any more bad publicity.
Twistin'-how long before someone in the U.S. might launch a class action on this privacy issue??
As for the security holes-I almost think you need to wait whenever a new application is launched to wait until the update patch is released to the Computer Magazine's CD-roms!
I also agree that 56k connections to perform major updates would be a complete joke. (Read the suggestion above).
I think I'll wait 'til I get a larger H.D.D & learn how you install multiple OS's or get a separate PC to consider XP.

Pyromania · 03 January 2002, 07:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Exodus

Getting to WinUAE now. CodePoet has released 0.8.17/R3, but I'm still using 0.8.8/R8. When the revisions start at 0.8.14, Brian took away "WaveOut Looping" and stuck with "DirectSound Looping". That ruined the whole emulator. When I ran 0.8.14, I have nothing more than choppy sound. Even with 0.8.17/R3, fiddling with the lag compensation does nothing. Why couldn't CodePoet leave the sound alone? I just like to know if any of you have the same problem?

I don't know about you, but I rather stick with 0.8.8/R3. I already complained about this twice. Some suggested that I should upgrade my operating system to Win2K or WinXP (maybe even Win98SE, which I plan to do in the near future). If that doesn't work, tough.

Just my two cents.

I had the same problem with sound when using Windows ME, upgrading to Win2K solved it for me. Upgrading to Xp also resolves this issue but then you are opening up a whole new can of worms, passport, .net, shoddy security etc.

Pyromania · 03 January 2002, 07:37

Quote:

Originally posted by Twistin' Ghost
Yup. Even if XP can be installed with the 'old school' look, even under the surface is nasty things. I don't like having to 'check in' with Microsoft before I can use my computer. And this is required every several programs you install (why? so they can check it all out and make sure you are not pirating? is this a police state or something?) M$ has no respect for privacy nor personal security, as evidenced by countless security holes (including Denial of Service vulnerabilities in even MS SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7.0). XP was released with the same security holes, only worse because additionally these holes allowed hackers to completely take over the machine by recognizing peripheral devices (?!). They refer to it as a buffer overflow vulnerability, and it gives any hacker full privileges. How does something like this get out the door and bypass the 'experts' at MS or the beta testers? It took an independant security consultant firm to find it. And I have already ranted in great detail about the IP stack which is a DOS hacker's dream. It just seems everything MS touches is done so irresponsibly and that gets worse with each revision. I won't go back further than W98SE and I shall go nowhere near XP.

XP will ask you to recertify if you change your hardware too much. For example new gfx card, sound card, network card etc. You may even need to call M$ if you have made to many changes. It's hit or miss when this will happen, it depends how many changes you make. Just installing software will not trigger this though. XP will stop the installation of some older drivers sometimes, M$ wants developers to get their drivers approved with Microsoft before release, they are control freaks you know. With the release of XP M$ is trying to wipe out even more third party software developers. CD Burner, DVD playback, IM, streaming video, firewall, photo/jpeg managment, picture editing etc is all included. These are poor M$ versions with less features but many novice users will not buy third party solutions when they have one included even if it is worse. As always M$ promises they will improve it later. I was shocked at how many third part developers M$ steps on with the release of XP, even Kodak & Sony! The worthless Movie Making/Editing program from WinME is still included with no new features worth mentioning. They ripped off the multi-user login feature from Linux as well. Also they try for that pretty candy colored OS look ala MacOS X but flunk, MacOS X looks better. I don't know if many of you know this but Windows XP even includes the old Amiga voice and Say command. You remember, you can type anything you want and the computer repeats it back. Talk about an OS Upgrade to rip everyones ideas off!!!

Pyromania · 03 January 2002, 07:41

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake1009
I'm still staying with win98. It might be that XP is far more stable and has a better look and everything, but it's still missing the ability to be backwards compatible. Win98 has enough of a problem with this.

XP does have better compatiblity with 95/98 than Win2K, it has a special compatiblity mode that you can try old apps.

Pyromania · 03 January 2002, 07:43

Quote:

Originally posted by 7-Zark-7
Forgive my reading at 90k.p.h. & I misread things, but did I read correctly that even after you've registered XP, if you've installed another "X" number of programs eg; a few games,Anti-virus, WinAmp etc. that XP demands you go to MS's site again?!
I

This only happens if you change your hardware too much, software changes will not trigger this.

Drake1009 · 03 January 2002, 10:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Pyromania

XP does have better compatiblity with 95/98 than Win2K, it has a special compatiblity mode that you can try old apps.

But 95/98 has a sort of compatibility mode (MS-DOS underneath) where you can try older stuff back from the good days of gaming. For FPS games sure 95/98 was good, but for good gameplay wise games there were a darn lot on DOS which windows refuse to run even on 98.

31 December 2001, 04:55	#1
Exodus Registered User Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Melbourne/Australia Posts: 89	My two cents I read that Twistin' Ghost was not upgrading to Windows XP because of the way that Macrohard designed it. Personally, I don't blame him. I tried XP myself and thought it was very childish. Pretty colors everywhere you look. It's basically a joke. It's just one way that Macrohard attempts to dominate the software market. The fact that you have 30 days to log onto their web site just to register it is absolutely ridiculous. How many of you are pissed of at Macrohard? I like Windows 98's interface a lot. It's easy to use and does what it is told. It treats me with respect. Getting to WinUAE now. CodePoet has released 0.8.17/R3, but I'm still using 0.8.8/R8. When the revisions start at 0.8.14, Brian took away "WaveOut Looping" and stuck with "DirectSound Looping". That ruined the whole emulator. When I ran 0.8.14, I have nothing more than choppy sound. Even with 0.8.17/R3, fiddling with the lag compensation does nothing. Why couldn't CodePoet leave the sound alone? I just like to know if any of you have the same problem? I don't know about you, but I rather stick with 0.8.8/R3. I already complained about this twice. Some suggested that I should upgrade my operating system to Win2K or WinXP (maybe even Win98SE, which I plan to do in the near future). If that doesn't work, tough. Just my two cents.

31 December 2001, 05:21	#2
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	Yup. Even if XP can be installed with the 'old school' look, even under the surface is nasty things. I don't like having to 'check in' with Microsoft before I can use my computer. And this is required every several programs you install (why? so they can check it all out and make sure you are not pirating? is this a police state or something?) M$ has no respect for privacy nor personal security, as evidenced by countless security holes (including Denial of Service vulnerabilities in even MS SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 7.0). XP was released with the same security holes, only worse because additionally these holes allowed hackers to completely take over the machine by recognizing peripheral devices (?!). They refer to it as a buffer overflow vulnerability, and it gives any hacker full privileges. How does something like this get out the door and bypass the 'experts' at MS or the beta testers? It took an independant security consultant firm to find it. And I have already ranted in great detail about the IP stack which is a DOS hacker's dream. It just seems everything MS touches is done so irresponsibly and that gets worse with each revision. I won't go back further than W98SE and I shall go nowhere near XP. WinUAE is really taking a beating from WinFellow these days. To its credit, however, Toni has been incorporating some really good things into his bit and must be commended. It's what keeps WinUAE in the running and what makes looking at updates worth the trouble. Shame about the sound...

31 December 2001, 09:21	#3
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	XP shudder nice looking interface with added lack of privacy, added incompatibility, added money to microslugs and many more features. Ok so it's supposed to be more stable. Well it was about time for something stable to emerge but that doesn't really matter if you don't feel like visiting their web site and get counted among the sheep or if your computer is compromised, that sort of makes it more incompatible. BTW I was wondering about antivirus? On a 98 machine you can use a dos boot disk with the scanner on it to scan and remove viruses from a deeply infected machine. What do you do if your XP gets infected? I doubt if you're running NTFS that it'd be a good idea to run a DOS program running one of the FAT systems through that harddisk. As for winUAE. It's still a great emulator. It runs a darn lot, but unfortunately for me I can't use it at full speed which is one of the reasons I prefer to use Winfellow when I can.

31 December 2001, 11:26	#4
Toni Wilen WinUAE developer Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Hämeenlinna/Finland Age: 49 Posts: 26,529	In (near?) future UAE's system specific sound, graphics and input device APIs will be replaced with SDL (www.libsdl.org, portable lowlevel graphics, sound and input device API). I hope this helps with sound problems. (At least SDL supports both directsound and waveout automatically, but "unfortunately" I don't have any problems with sound..)

31 December 2001, 11:57	#5
Exodus Registered User Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Melbourne/Australia Posts: 89	The thing is with Macrohard is that when they released WinNT to everybody, it was unstable most of the time. It could crash when you least expected. Because of this, MH released at least 5 service packs on their web site. Each service pack users had to install turn out to be more unstable than the last. So when users complained about the instability in SP1, they made SP2. When users complained about that, they released SP3, etc. etc. The point I'm trying to make is they will never make its OS stable. Now I wonder how many SPs they will make for XP. Apart from this, ever since WinME was released, they continue to copy other people's work, and possibly got sued. Windows Media Player is now just a carbon copy of RealPlayer , just as Windows Movie Maker is a carbon copy of iMovie. You're right. Codepoet should be congratulated on the excellent work they've done. If they kept going on like this, every piece of Amiga hardware would be completed by the next release. I also have WinFellow, but I don't use it as much. By the way, how long is i until we have a new release? The emulator is so far behnd WinUAE. It has no AGA support, save state support, or CD32/CDTV emulation. I like to see those things get implemented in the next release.

31 December 2001, 14:44	#6
Ian Global Moderator Join Date: May 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 46 Posts: 2,287	The fact remains though that XP is the best version of windows you can buy (Even though that's not saying much), even with all the problems that do exist it's still better than Windows 9x & 2000. I dislike M$ as much as anyone, but XP is far better than there usual crap. Most people I know with systems better than the minimum spec (ie >500mhz and at least 128 mb) all agree. I'm in no way trying to tell anyone to upgrade, that's their choice not mine. @Drake1009 Norton Makes a set of boot disk's for XP, the same way it does for all the other Windows versions, I imagine most other Antivirus software will do as well. About WinUAE, it runs fine for me, maybe it's depends on the power of your system, I have three computers here at present, one a 366 celeron (crap sound, but I can make it sound better just by moving the various sliders, which do work), a 750 mhz Athlon and 1800 Athlon XP on both of those it sounds fine. Comparing (Win)Fellow, with (Win)UAE is unfair to both emu's, Fellow has been designed for speed whereas UAE has been designed for complete compatability (And it's getting there, slowly, but surely), who knows, when/if the (Win)Fellow people start adding features like AGA and other things it's missing over UAE, it might become as unstable as previous (Win)UAE's were. For me, I just have the latest version of both emu's installed, I don't have any problems with either of them. (Yes that means no system crippling crashes)

31 December 2001, 15:41	#7
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	I'm still staying with win98. It might be that XP is far more stable and has a better look and everything, but it's still missing the ability to be backwards compatible. Win98 has enough of a problem with this. And you're completely right about Winfellow/WinUAE. Fellow does concentrate on speed which is apparent when you find lacks in the graphics here, missing collision detection there, not too good diskloading over there and so on. As for crippling crashes. WinUAE has fed me a couple of those but I think they're fixed. I really should try the new version soon. Crippling here meaning that the most I'm able to run graphics wise unless I want to reboot is solitare and minesweeper. But that might as well be a specific problem with my drivers since I've had similar problems with other programs.

31 December 2001, 17:31	#8
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,270	Hear Hear for the comments of Exodus & co. re WinUAE/Win9x/Xp etc.!! Despite all the hype that some people have been spouting for Win2K to run WinUAE,& Win9x is "dead" etc.,Win2K is not designed with older gaming in mind. I'm glad WinUAE's coders are finally looking at addressing the sound issues. From what I read elsewhere on another thread, they dropped the sound system from the best WinUAE 08.8r8 (For Win9x systems),apparently because the UAE coder responsible for it had left the project & noone else knew how to use it. As for the Winfellow vs. WinUAE arguements-I don't use WinFellow as a general rule, but at least they seem to be working on getting a decent fully functioning OCS/ECS emulator done first. I think I'd rather see a "finished" (ie: largley gaming etc. compatible),non-aga version done first then worry about an aga-based version later. As for XP,whilst many older systems can run it, surely it's more optimum to use it with new systems,(P4 or Athlon/Duron etc.). Look at the no. of "legacy driver" & program issues that seem to be part of XP. I'd suggest a DOS or legacy type programe for XP would help,but I'd imagine MS would squash any DOS emulator!

31 December 2001, 17:57	#9
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	But even if I could make XP look and taste just like W98, there's still the flow of security issues that keep cropping up. This latest hole is just the newest; I suspect there will be more. And that very firm that discovered it had reported the issue to M$ long before XP was released, but as usual, M$ did not care, anymore than their IP stack issue that was reported by other security experts. It just seems that M$ thrives on security holes and privacy intrusions, so each new OS seems to chide away another layer of that and disguises it with added features, speed, compatibility, etc. Nor would I buy a car from a manufacturer with a reputation for shoddy work and unsafe design issues. I don't doubt that there are some improvements in XP, but all of them I can live without. And I certainly don't want M$ taking over in areas of virus protection and CD burning software (and God knows what other franchise they are trying to squash this season...)

01 January 2002, 00:30	#11
Exodus Registered User Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Melbourne/Australia Posts: 89	Since I have only a P2/400Mhz sitting at home, I can't upgrade to XP even if I wanted to. I don't really care about security, since I'm not on a network. There are two versions of XP. The Home Edition and the Business Edition. I read that the Businesws Edition is has more stability than the Home Edition.

03 January 2002, 03:41	#12
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,270	Forgive my reading at 90k.p.h. & I misread things, but did I read correctly that even after you've registered XP, if you've installed another "X" number of programs eg; a few games,Anti-virus, WinAmp etc. that XP demands you go to MS's site again?! It's one thing for any "auto-update" features, but it's quite another if they want your system & program specs too, unless I have a tech-support issue, it's no company's business what your PC has.

03 January 2002, 04:48	#13
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	I agree completely. I'll be curious to see how happy the XP users are after having to repeatedly get a 'locker check' from M$. The fact that the general public bends over and takes this up the ass completely amazes me. I assume then that an internet connection is required for using XP?

03 January 2002, 05:29	#14
TikTok Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Malayasia Age: 43 Posts: 657	IIRC, the box for WinXP states the same as for previous versions: "Internet connection may be required for some features". What, like installing your favourite software, upgrading your graphics card, or using your computer on a Tuesday? Most people in the UK are still on slow and expensive 56K dialup too, so how they put up with it is beyond me.

03 January 2002, 05:38	#15
7-Zark-7 Zone Friend Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Brisbane/Australia Posts: 1,270	You would think after the Anti-trust lawsuits that MS wouldn't want any more bad publicity. Twistin'-how long before someone in the U.S. might launch a class action on this privacy issue?? As for the security holes-I almost think you need to wait whenever a new application is launched to wait until the update patch is released to the Computer Magazine's CD-roms! I also agree that 56k connections to perform major updates would be a complete joke. (Read the suggestion above). I think I'll wait 'til I get a larger H.D.D & learn how you install multiple OS's or get a separate PC to consider XP.

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