Linus Torvalds on IA-64

[spud]

Thank you for someone else that can see good business. Some people are soo hopped up on thir opinion over something or someone they cant see the real person or product for what it is.

-Jeremy

<font color=blue>Just some advice from your friendly neighborhood blue man </font color=blue>

 

[eden]

Slvr, I am with imgod2u and Spud on this, Gates has done many mistakes but he did what a capitalistic company needed to do to succeed. If MS began in Canada, you bet as hell it would never be this way. Is that a good thing?
To me, as much as I love my country, being in Canada would've drastically reduced the Microsoft innovation over the years.
I strongly disagree with how you see it.
I won't comment below on the MSDOS history, as I've little to no knowledge of what happened back then to debate.

It was the hardware. You can't go and praise Microsoft for PCs becoming widespread when it wasn't even a matter of software. Gates had nothing to do with that

You are right in that being non-related to Gates. However, I believe it was the dedication of Gates to create Windows to comply to many hardware companies' products. SOMETHING must have been done in order to let the companies trust MS, and know something will run it well, THAT's where Gates had something to do in it.

Sorry, but that's an overly-idealistic way of looking at it. Windows for some reason caught on where other graphical and text DOS shells hadn't. It wasn't marketting. It wasn't the product's superiority. It just happened because the stars happened to be right one day or something equally unfathomable. Windows 1.0 just caught on because someone had to be the standard and it fell into Microsoft's lap.

That could be why, however at that time, Windows 1.0 was barely heard of. I for one, lived through the 1995 era and I can clearly tell you, even back then Win95 was not that frequent, on my 486, I used Norton Commander and MSDOS to run stuff. I had Win3.1 which I rarely accessed!
All I know, is that Microsoft actually was determined. Even a small feature could've done this. I don't beleive in that sudden luck thing unless something triggers it. This is not a roulette!

Soon this re-investment back into development allowed them to outpace the development of all of the other shells and that just gave MS even more sales. By then, yes, MS was doing well in both marketting and product development. But then what company wouldn't do well? As the Windows snowball kept rolling down that hill, outpacing the other snowballs, it became a monster that no one could stop.

I fail to see what was wrong here, this is exactly why MS was succesful. It's not about being dumb, no sir.

That's why there are tons of people who didn't sign up with Microsoft's latest upgrade regime. That's why so many people are purposely avoiding Windows XP. That's why so many Windows XP users are growing more and more frustrated with Microsoft. That's why most people haven't upgraded Windows or Office in ages. For most people, the prices are too high and the actual benefit that they get out of the upgrade just isn't worth it.

I am sorry but that is not entirely true. The majority of people I know, simply love WindowsXP, for its simplicity (one got cable internet, just plugged the modem, opened IE and could surf). I myself think this is a significant improvement over any OS MS ever did. I am sorry you could not see this, but MS has power to convince, and this OS was damn honest in convincing, as it holds truth. Stability may not be the absolute best, but that's Win2K's job, as WinXP has some Win9x architecture in it.
I honestly have never seen anything greater and easier to use than WinXP, and that's not just the eye candy saying this. I've really enjoyed how everything was easy to setup, rare crashes, no BSODs (except that nv4_disp.dll loop bug which no longer happens, I assume new chipset and graphics drivers did this).

Your claim of users of WinXP being frustrated is rather false. As I said, I have over 5 people in real life that I know, who have used and enjoyed WinXP, rare are the ones who couldn't find their place in it. Aside from moving away from DOS, this OS has little disadvantages, from my POV it has none in fact. It improves over everything Win9X had faults in.

No, Microsoft has been slowly but surely run into the ground over the last two years, if not longer.

I think they are reacting back. Just recently MS announced a huge extension of warranty from 6 months, to 5 years to their products, including support for Win98, and WinXP being warranted for 2007 or so. They clearly are noticing the public's view, and are trying to win them back.

In short, I don't see why you see MS like that, or Gates, but I am with spud and imgod2u, Gates was not just lucky but he knew the real deal back in the 1980s. Ok not a visionary with his 640K oughta be enough quote, but still.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[eden]

Over time when a company is too succesful, people see it as evil. Tons around me hate MS for no reason.
People see Intel as evil as well, though the number has reduce dramatically.

I don't see MS as evil to be honest, I simply fail to.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[ejsmith2]

I'm with Eden on this one (mark that up as a first).

Business is Hell, where whimps eat flaming plasma death. If you can't handle it, your genes are wiped from the pool, and the strong survive.

It's been this way since the 1500's. Burn the ships and all that.


America made Microsoft. And Intel. And AMD. And Sun. And IBM.

It wasn't the Russians. It wasn't the Germans, the Afghans, or the Peruvians.




Business is War. Deal with it.

[edit: Strictly to clear up any doubt, this is not sarcasm. I would have used html to denote the areas, if it was.]
"I personally think filesystems should be rewritten from scratch every 5 years..." --- Hans Reiser

 

[SammyBoy]

While I'll say that MS is being run the way many people want to see in their CEO, the lack of competition and challenges (outside of the courtroom, that is) has made MS go soft. They developed a certain outlook at the PC market around the time of Win95, and haven't looked back. The IE integration fiasco (which at the time was an inferior product to Netscape, but has grown into a usable product in its own right), bundling of other software not related to the OS, but there cause it had the MS name on it, and other things have given the company an air of arrogance and disdain for their end-users. I myself us WinXP Pro, but if the current plans of MS pan out, I might stick with it for a while. Longhorn sounds more like bloat and pointless DRM crap than actual innovation. And RedHat 8.0 and Mandrake 9.0 both look like very serious contenders in the GUI OS front. They already have strong support in terms of an office suite (which can use many MS Office formats) and internet and A/V programs (not to mention its perennial strengths). All it's missing, in terms of my own needs, is gaming support. Yes, there are more and more games being created with Linux in mind, and Nvidia has pretty damn good support in terms of drivers. But my sound card has limited support (no EAX and D3D sound, nor 5.1 support), and the games I happen to play seem to be absent from the list of Linux supporting games. There are software houses out there that contract with the original publisher to make Linux ports, but many of those have gone belly-up recently, not to mention that usually the games get ported about 6-9 months after they were originally released.

I don't like MS, I'll say that. Their business practices, while sound in terms of staying on top, are given a dull edge when there is no competition to hone them on. All it will take is a strong challenge by Linux and/or Apple (there are "rumors" of future Apple OSes being usable on x86 processors, though they are rumors, and I think those kind have been following Apple for years), or someone else with a Bill Gates-esq approach to the coding world, to upset the giant. I don't see MS lasting in it's current position any more than 3 years.


Oh, and the settlement announced today was too weak. I mean, I want to be able to remove those damn programs, not just hide the icons.


One more thing. You'll notice that Apple OSes are far cheaper to buy than MS OSes, even though they both, in effect, have a monopoly on their respective systems.

-SammyBoy

Some day, THG-willing, I shall obtain the coveted "Old Hand" title.

 

[eden]

Oh, and the settlement announced today was too weak. I mean, I want to be able to remove those damn programs, not just hide the icons.

As far as I am concerned, SP1 does just that, letting you remove, disable completly what you don't need, and that includes IE an MP8, as well as MSN. However to me, all three are important, they are excellent integrated tools and I don't need fancy browsers, as IE6 is just great, no crashes whatsoever. MSN, well I do remember some instabilities, but overall this is the best messenger program out there. And as for Media Player 8, it's fine, filled with many multimedia supported formats and types of playbacks, however I've switched to WinAMP for music, while videos are still a Media Player strengh.

One more thing. You'll notice that Apple OSes are far cheaper to buy than MS OSes, even though they both, in effect, have a monopoly on their respective systems.

I disagree, the majority of users purchase OEM OSs, you rarely will see someone shelling out about 200$ US for a WinXP Pro Retail copy, just for the support and manual. That means the average price for WinXP Home OEM which I legally bought and am happy with such decision, is 99$, when I compare that to FutureShop's Mac OSX at 200$ CDN which is about 120$ US, therefore you are partially wrong with that statement.

I will agree that the lack of competition certainly does dull things out. I don't like what I hear in the court's claims of MS' antitrust acts, however I then think: In 1995, wasn't Intel crushing its CPU opponents one by one until AMD was the last active one? And then didn't AMD come back striking with its might, despite being over 10 times smaller, delivering a CPU which actually for the first time ever, steal over 20% of the market share, putting Intel at or below 80%?

Although this isn't directed to you, you should also take in mind that Intel has been around for over 30 years, MS has been here since 22 years, or around it. Yet MS has jumped so far since, that they are now considered a monopoly, have such a strong user base following its OS, and continue to launch products, which to me have always been satisfying, which includes nice MS Games like FSim, Midtown Madness (although not entirely developped by them), and many more, as well as Office Suites, etc.
MS has done aggressively, even more than Intel, and they succeeded. Did they put people on the streets? I honestly do not know, I haven't heard such, I have heard of assimilations, as in mergers. However, with the huge database of software for Windows, as well as over billions of users which are Joes, who simply know Windows as Pentium, will need a huge beating of adds before any other OS ever picks up. Think about it, if Dell sold Linux boxes to Joes, without being aware, and they notice they can't use their programs on it, that'll be the day many will realize, MS has done a lot, and to think they won't last with Windows much longer in terms of competition, is indeed as Slvr suggested, an insane hope.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[SammyBoy]

Mostly, I would have liked to remove MSN Messenger, since I have no use for it, my messenger of choice is AIM. Since thats what my friends have, it's what I have. I used to use WMP for video, but then WinAmp 3 came out, and when you add in the Divx Player, generally speaking, I have all that I need. WMP has been relegated to the closet, used only if required (such as WMV). I used IE6 exclusively, and don't mind it, as it has matured quite well since it was initially introduced in Win95. Then it was just a clunky piece of crap that crashed more often the not. In general, I enjoy WinXP, but not because of the features (the burning software was disabled from day one... Nero and CloneCD are my preferred programs). Indexing is crap, and the built in hard drive defragmenter and scan disk are just as bad, as has always been the case. I love admin tools, mainly because I can have more control over the various remote access portals to my system, and user functions (as it stands, nothing is activated, and all links, including MS's user profiles, are disabled and/or deleted.)

And then there is the stability. Going from Win98SE to WinXP Pro was wonderful. But still, I am always concerned with the continuos security holes, especially when they get pissed off at people for discovering them, telling MS over and over, getting no response or fix, then posting it on the web. Seems to be the only way to get them to fix things... as if they don't have the time to fix security flaws (remember the UPnP hole? Case in point). I guess I feel there isn't enough tranparency to the whole thing. Certain "features" are hidden away, where only the most dedicated can find, things like backdoors for MS to download programs they deem you need (part of the new EULA...). Just stuff like that. Since I don't have a packet sniffer on my line, I couldn't tell you if WinXP Pro was phoning home even though I tell it not to in every way I can. I'm sure it is, though.

As to prices of OSes, I noticed that the OSX 10.2 is going for 119.99 at Newegg, without hardware purchases nessicary, while the OEM version of WinXP Pro is going for 93.00. So, even if you buy some cheap piece of hardware for the discount, you're still paying about the same. Personally, I like education discounts, which college students are eligible for. I got WinXP Pro Upgrade for $88, and while Newegg.com doesn't show a education discount, edu.com has OSX 10.2 for ~$65, much cheaper. And, I feel that retail-wise (which, unless people buy computers, is where people get upgrades) MS is gouging people by offering a product at the $100 price-point that doesn't even have the networking features (Novell Netware comes to mind, required at my school) of Win98SE and Win95, and in other ways, is just a really stripped down version of it. WinXP Pro, the <i>real</i> WinXP, is going for the $200 dollar price point. And you'll also notice that Win98SE and Win2000 still sell for their debut prices, 2-5 years after they are released. There's something not right about that. At least Apple has the decency to pull the old version of the OS (not that they have much else going for them). Both are pigopolies, trying to squeeze as much out of the consumer as possible. It's the name of capitalism. I guess what bothers me about both is that they are so ingrained in their respective market segments, that there is no longer the laws of supply and demand. It's all artifical, and they have complete control over it. And, they can charge prices that are much to high. I mean, I can't remember hearing about MS even coming close to posting a break even report for profits, even in this latest slump. There's something wrong when a company that is dealing with a commodity instead of a nessesity, and is able to be considered recession-proof. That's just wrong.

-SammyBoy

Some day, THG-willing, I shall obtain the coveted "Old Hand" title.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

WinXP has some Win9x architecture in it.

NEVER.

The programs that run only in Win9x and don't run in Win2000, will never run in WinXP. I have some older games that works only in Win9x. They don't run in Win2000, WinXP gives same result. What WinXP does for adding Win9X compatibility is adding a cheating feature in .exe file properties dialogue box that. This only reports the program that this comp is running 95/98 or Me. This only works with some progrms that can work in Win2000, but they refuse to run if they see the OS is not Win9X. You can do this cheat with Win2000 also, a program is available in the Win2000 CD for this purpose.

Your claim of users of WinXP being frustrated is rather false.

I am frustated and swithched back to Win2000. WinXP is nothing but a Win2000 with a candy coated interface and some useless features like error reporting, system restore (at least to me). Almost every Win2000 user will feel like me. People who are really happy with WinXP, they were former Win9x and Me user.

Anyway, it does't matter for MS or other software companies what I use, because I get any software for $0 to max $3.

Submit your opinions and comment in my latest poll <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25600#25600" target="_new"> What is Bangladesh </A>

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Indexing is crap, and the built in hard drive defragmenter and scan disk are just as bad, as has always been the case.

I can't agree with you here. Win2000/XP disk defragmenter is quite good, especially compared to Win95/98/Me disk defragmenter. And Win2000/XP checkdisk (Commandline) doesn't offer surface scan like scandisk, but in terms of standard scanning, it is better than scandisk. It is faster and lets you to unmount a volume before scanning. Scandisk doesn't offer it, it restarts scanning frequently in this case.

Submit your opinions and comment in my latest poll <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25600#25600" target="_new"> What is Bangladesh </A>

 

[zengeos]

OK I've skimmed and read many of the posts about how MS gained market momentum and retained it. It seems that many here have forgotten a MAJOR reason why MS gained it's momentum. It made great distribution licenses with many hardware manufacturers. Those licenses basically said that the OEM must purchase a copy of Windows OS for EVERY PC it sold, even if Windows was NOT included. Because MS made such sweetheart deals with the OEMS ($10-$20 per machine for software bundles) other companies could not compete with their aggressive pricing. Where Microsoft made up for this significant undercutting was in the upgrades and add ons. Microsoft eleased upgrades every couple years, for which they charged consumers significant and profitmaking amounts.

If Microsoft hadn't set such restrictive licenses in the early to mid 90's I suspect there could even to tis day, be other competition. MS likely would not be nearly as large as they are today.

When Microsoft made their settlement with the DOJ in the mid 90's they already had 90+% of the PC market and there were no competitors in sight, so modifying the license to remove the Pay for it even if you don't include it clause had no tangible effect since the damage was already done.

Mark-

<font color=blue>When all else fails, throw your computer out the window!!!</font color=blue>

 

[eden]

NEVER.

The programs that run only in Win9x and don't run in Win2000, will never run in WinXP. I have some older games that works only in Win9x. They don't run in Win2000, WinXP gives same result. What WinXP does for adding Win9X compatibility is adding a cheating feature in .exe file properties dialogue box that. This only reports the program that this comp is running 95/98 or Me. This only works with some progrms that can work in Win2000, but they refuse to run if they see the OS is not Win9X. You can do this cheat with Win2000 also, a program is available in the Win2000 CD for this purpose.

I am not so sure on this. I have many programs which needed the "cheat" to work, and not necessarily because they didn't run on Win2k that they won't on WinXP. Take AutoCAD 2000, could not run or install from CD in WinXP, and it seems to me it works perfectly in Win2000. I had to make it run in Win2K or Win9X mode (the install file from the CD!) so I could install and run it for my dad.

I am frustated and swithched back to Win2000. WinXP is nothing but a Win2000 with a candy coated interface and some useless features like error reporting, system restore (at least to me). Almost every Win2000 user will feel like me. People who are really happy with WinXP, they were former Win9x and Me user.

I could not debate a Win2000 user. Why?
I know it from experience, users who use Win2000, specifically for server purposes, will obviously prefer Win2000 over WinXP. In a technical POV, Win2K is superior to WinXP. It's one of the most stable OSs ever, I and probably you have heard of people running it for over 3 months with no restart. However for a Win9X generation user like me, WinXP makes all the difference and would definitly be better than Win2K, as its home features are aplenty for me. But I cannot disagree with a Win2k user who tried WinXP and shifted back to Win2k, as it holds truth to how respected Win2000 is. But, to claim Win9X users are frustrated with WinXP, I will disagree, and say it depends on the applications they used which to me seems to support the majority, including SOME DOS programs too!
I was nearly able to run Doom II DOS on it, but the Sound IRQ assignment didn't allow, so I got ZDOOM, the windows emulated version, works like a charm with my SB Live.

So let us keep this to an opinion level, rather than argumentative on which OS is better, as it'll never end, because of real facts which put each OS in light.


--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[Spitfire_x86]

But, to claim Win9X users are frustrated with WinXP, I will disagree

I never claimed such. I want to mean that there was no need of WinXP with so little improvement. Most home users didn't used Win2000, not for that reason it was harder to use. In fact, it was 0% more harder than Win98. Microsoft didn't advertised it as a home OS, that is the reason. Win9X users don't mind using XP, but they are not interested about Win2000. WinXP would have same fate even after microsoft's promotional activities to make it accepteble for home use. This is the candy coated interface which made Win9x users to switch to XP (in more than 90% case).

Another little MS trick to make people beleive that XP has some Win9x architecture, the default installation directory is WINDOWS instead of classic WINNT of WinNT/2000.

MS cheats us to beleive that XP boots faster than other Windows (including Windows 2000). This is true that WinXP loads very quickly after first installation. Thios continues for few days. But after installing various softwares and using windows for many days, bootup time increases. In a position, it will take longer than Win2000 to boot. No optimization can prevent it, including defrangmenting disk frequently. This doesn't happen in Win2000, it takes same time to boot after first installation and 3-4 months after first installation.

Afterall, we must admit that MS is a cheater.

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>

 

[eden]

I disagree on the WinXP bootup.
Yes it can become absurdly long, but there are tools specifically that optimize this:
Microsoft BootVis, a tool you can use to reduce the startup time at the splash screen. It is neat, and reduces my "number of green bars scrolled" from 11 to 6-8, and can go further.
You also have the excellent DiskKeeper 7 defragmenter, which is also WinXP's defrag program, albeit a castrated less performing one. Get DK7, then use the Boot-Time Defragmenter, and it will also help startups as well as speeding up load times of programs. Finally defragmenting the drive with DK7 will also improve performance.

WinXP has the prefetch algorithm, if you didn't notice. You can have about 10 icons to load in the tray, and 150MB worth of commit charge at a STARTUP, not when you open and start using WinXP, and the OS will load em all in little I/O operations, which means it takes about 5-10 seconds, and everything is loaded. Often it takes that for me.
To boot WinXP, it takes me less than a minute, more like 30-40 seconds, and that's fine by me.
Yes Shut downs are longer, but I think MS did the right thing including a Saving Settings phase during Shut Downs, as it helps reduce any loss of settings or documents, but personally I do not mind shut down times in WinXP, as long as you have properly configured the system with stable drivers and no bloatware programs in the background, it will shut down in less than 15 seconds, which is more than ok to me if it includes file security measures.

Again WinXP contains a lot of features that compel any user to switch, not just for the interface. The automatic configuration of the system when a new device is found is simply inviting. As I gave an example before, about a friend getting cable internet, plugging the cable into the NIC card, and then opening IE and surfing already, there are many things WinXP will include with itself in the event you did not get the proper software. For example it includes an extremly simple and easy to use webcam software, found in My Computer when a webcam is detected, you simply go there, it loads the cam, you can start filming or taking still pics. WinXP also has the revert driver feature which also helps, or you can system restore, which again to me has been a lifesaver. Really, WinXP is a Windows 2000 with a slick interface and very user-friendly features. If it had the Win2K stability and the Win2K server possibilities (right up to Advanced Server 32), it would possibly be a competition killer. Windows is fine as it is, I ain't switching to no other OS' yet for a long time.
Sorry to have said you claimed Win9X users are frustrated with WinXP, I meant it towards those who said that, including Slvr.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[Nikko]

Torvalds doesn't know about hardware? Huhh? That's a ridiculous statement. Torvalds had a great deal to do with the delevopment of Transmeta.

Torvalds knows exactly what he's talking about. You don't!

I like the Pentium IV, I really do! And it's so versatile. You simply won't find a more stylish or decorative key chain ornament or paperweight.
<A HREF="http://www.faceintel.com" target="_new"> CLICK ME </A>

 

[eden]

LOL.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[SammyBoy]

Well, from my personal experience, WinXP Pro has got faster since initial installation (surprising as it may seem). In fact, usually the longest part of bootup is logging onto the network here, and that has nothing to do with the OS, and everything to do with the time of day I log on. Average boot time from the POST beep to the logon screen is 15, maybe 20 seconds, and another 10 seconds after logon (depends on how quickly the network accpets my connection). I have never seen an OS load that fast. Here, the Win2000 machines (sadly, based on P3 Celerons... the original versions) take near a minute to load, and don't get me started on how long Macs take to load from cold boot (shudder). I think it would be safe to say that my machine is one of the fastest loading systems out there. I can't really see them loading much faster.

-SammyBoy

Some day, THG-willing, I shall obtain the coveted "Old Hand" title.

 

[eden]

Actually WinXP builds a database of prefetches, in order to make programs load faster. From ExtremeTech's conclusions, the more you open your programs in WinXP, the more they will be faster to load later on. That's not to say you go now and load the program over 100 times, but over time things will feel faster if you keep the system well cleaned and stable.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[ejsmith2]

"well cleaned and stable."

Ummmm.

Those two are mutually exclusive, with Microsoft.

"I personally think filesystems should be rewritten from scratch every 5 years..." --- Hans Reiser

 

[Spitfire_x86]

From ExtremeTech's conclusions, the more you open your programs in WinXP, the more they will be faster to load later on. That's not to say you go now and load the program over 100 times, but over time things will feel faster if you keep the system well cleaned and stable.

This works in Win2000 also, should also work in Win98/Me. The theory is actually-the more you open your programs in Windows, the more they will be faster to load later on. This theory works if you load a app (MSWORD for example) and quit it and do light tasks for few minutes and load Word again, it will load faster than first time. But you loaded word and closed it, then used WinRAR 3.0 to compress for one hour with all memory hungry settings (like 4096 KB dictionary), this theory will never work regardless it is Win2000 or XP. WinRAR will eat all memory you have. Windows will send back MSWORD data from memory to HD. It will take same time to load MSWORD compared to first load. I am saying this thing from my personal experience.

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>

 

[eden]

No that is not what I meant. You are thinking about cache, I am talking about prefetching and rearrangement of the layout.
WinXP DOES have a special layout algortithm it does while you are using your computer, hence the Task Monitor service. (or some other name)
I suggest you go check Extreme Tech's Windows XP introduction to read on this, otherwise you will not be on the same page with me here.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[Spitfire_x86]

I have read the first half of that article. This prefetching sounds good theoritically. But practically it has minimal or no effect. I used WinXP for few months. I was unable to feel that there's something special like it inside the kernel.

Does this prefetching need tons of Ram? I have used XP with 224 MB ram with my old K6-2 450 and with 120 MB with my current Duron 1 GHz.

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>

 

[eden]

Lol, I think you do need a serious boost in RAM!
256MB is the bare minimal in my opinion in WinXP, it is already slow in that. 512MB makes a whole difference.

I noticed occasional speed-ups with the prefetching tricks, OE6 would open blazingly fast, so as IE. Of course I had to do a boot-time defrag, then 3 days later it worked. You just have to make sure your directories are often consolidated, not laid out everywhere messing all disk access.

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[eden]

with 120 MB

Sounds to me like some Intel EXTREME GRAPHICS'-based motherboard or OEM computer, so that it ate 8MBs away!

--
The worst of enemies shall be prone to later be the best of friends. -Eden

 

[Spitfire_x86]

I felt 120 MB is too little when I was running WinXP. Now I am back to Win2000, ram isn't a serious problem now. Still it is a problem when I can't play today's memory hungry games, edit audio files and create rar archives. I was able to play MOHAA in WinMe with 300 MB fixed minimum virtual memory. Now I have money to add 128 MB ram, but I want to add 256 MB, so I will wait few months. 376 MB ram + Win2000 should be as fast as 512 MB ram + WinXP.

I noticed occasional speed-ups with the prefetching tricks, OE6 would open blazingly fast, so as IE

IE6.0 load was noraml in my case, not a bit faster than my Win2000+IE5 SP3 load. OE6.0 experience with WinXP was horrible. OE6.0 took normal time to load for few days after a fresh install, but continued to slowdown day by day. In a position, OE6.0 load experience was such-- windows "chord" sound, then 5-8 second delay, finally OE6.0 load with message "You are currently working offline, do you want to go online now?". Defrag helped very little in that case.

Sounds to me like some Intel EXTREME GRAPHICS'-based motherboard or OEM computer, so that it ate 8MBs away!

It's not a OEM box. I am running Duron 1 GHz with a MSI K7N420-Pro (nForce 420-D). I have very little ammount of ram, so I share 8 MB for video instead of default 32 MB.

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>

 

[Spitfire_x86]

I forgot to tell one thing that I found much faster in WinXP-- Hibernate. WinXP hibernates at least 5 times faster than Win2000. That was useful for me because I often use hibernate.

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>