What will be your future native Operative System?

Message

propellen · #1 Post by **propellen** » Sun May 20, 2007 10:16 am

Hi,

What are you planning to do when Microsoft quits working on Windows XP ?
Hopefully Windows VISTA is like Windows ME, atleast conserning the eyecandy. Mabye Microsoft will do something innovative after enough feedback from business users around the world.
My honest feeling about VISTA at the moment, is that its an operativsystem for children.

My personal thoughts for the future is a dualboot with Ubuntu as the main OS and VISTA as a secondary.

Turbo Audi · #2 Post by **Turbo Audi** » Sun May 20, 2007 11:37 am

MSFT will support XP until 2014, so that is a long way off. For the next and all future OS's by MSFT will all be 64 bit. Vista is the last 32 bit offering by MSFT.
Basically if time is an indication then by the time XP is no longer supported there will have already been two new OS's by MSFT. Im sure I will switch from XP within two years, when drivers from all manufactures work properly.

Im sure by 2014 everyone would have forgotten about XP.

#3 Post by **ryengineer** » Sun May 20, 2007 12:08 pm

propellen wrote:Hi,What are you planning to do when Microsoft quits working on Windows XP ?

I will probably switch to Vista.

Hopefully Windows VISTA is like Windows ME, atleast conserning the eyecandy. Mabye Microsoft will do something innovative after enough feedback from business users around the world. My honest feeling about VISTA at the moment, is that its an operativsystem for children.

That is not true. Remember Windows XP was once considered as
eye-candy too. But now it's standard in most, if not all systems.

My personal thoughts for the future is a dualboot with Ubuntu as the main OS and VISTA as a secondary.

I am a linux user myself but what about those people who don't have any know how of that OS?

#4 Post by **jdhurst** » Sun May 20, 2007 1:06 pm

propellen wrote:<snip>
Hopefully Windows VISTA is like Windows ME,
[A]
My honest feeling about VISTA at the moment, is that its an operativsystem for children.

<snip>

[A] I hope not. Windows ME should never have seen the light of day. It was acknowledged by many to be one of Microsoft's worst offerings.

Seems to be true.

The single and only OS that Microsoft turned out that was at once and at the same instant for business and workable was Windows 2000.

XP needs an entire page of settings changes to get rid of the eye candy, improve short and long term reliability, and to make it into a business system. Once done, it runs like a tank endlessly and is my OS of choice today.

Until Vista complies with critical business software new in 2006, it will be a non-starter in business which it seems to be today. I have not seen any instance of Vista in business use amongst my clients and travels.
... JDH

pianowizard · #5 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun May 20, 2007 1:20 pm

jdhurst wrote:XP needs an entire page of settings changes to get rid of the eye candy, improve short and long term reliability

Do you have a list of these setting changes that I can see? I too turn off the eye candy on all of my XP machines but am not sure if I'm doing enough to improve reliability.

#6 Post by **jdhurst** » Sun May 20, 2007 2:46 pm

Make sure the system is running NTFS
Ensure US language, US English, US Keyboard (I am Canadian)
Lock Taskbar
Do not auto hide
Keep taskbar on top
Show quick launch
Do not hide inactive icons
Classic Start Menu
Display Run
Display Admin tools (not for everyone)
Expand Control Panel
Expand Network Connections (ease of use)
Show small icons
Do not use personalized menus
Display logoff
Slow down mouse double-click
Speed up mouse movement
Make trackpoint more sensitive (not Windows)
Enhanced pointer precision
Auto move to default dialogue
Disable ultra-nav (not Windows)
Disable Fast User switching
Disable Welcome screen
Create strong passwords
Set for maximum performance (zero eye candy)
Then set on Smooth Screen fonts and Common tasks
Reduce amount of disk for system restore
Turn off auto updates - Notify if updates are available
Disable remote invitations being sent
Windows Classic Theme
Disable desktop cleanup wizard
Set Clear Type
Set sounds for Default Beep and Email Notify to Windows 2000
Turn off sound for Start Navigation
Disable Search for network Files and Printers
Turn off Simple Folder View
Turn off Simple File Sharing
Display full path in Address
Display full path in Title
Don't hide extensions
Remember folder settings
Show Control Panel in My Computer
Disable Offline Files
View Details (instead of Icons)
Add Delete, Cut, Copy, Paste to Explorer menu bar
Add status bar to bottom of Explorer Window
Show NIC icon when connected
Restrict IE Temp files to 70Mb or less
Disable auto connection
Disable script debugging
Disable personalized menus

... JDH

pianowizard · #7 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun May 20, 2007 3:18 pm

JD, thanks for the list. It's very helpful!

#8 Post by **Kyocera** » Sun May 20, 2007 3:54 pm

If you have the horsepower Vista Business is so far working great for me, Mfr's are catching up on the driver issues. Some of our customers are migrating over now and have had no issues, granted these are not huge enterprizes, put fairly decent size companies. I try to "pump them up" on not to get to down on it until you use it for a while, these are not computer geeks, just basic users so I've had a lot of postitive and of course some negative reactions.

#9 Post by **Kyocera** » Sun May 20, 2007 3:55 pm

Kwoon wrote:JD, thanks for the list. It's very helpful!

JD knows his stuff

Temetka · #10 Post by **Temetka** » Sun May 20, 2007 4:50 pm

I really like Vista. XP is great and fast, but I feel that with the level of technology we have achieved we can afford to have form and function. For me it's OS bling. What's the point in having a 128MB graphics card if it is going to set idle 90% of the time? Put it to use.

That being said, XP has reached a certain level of maturity where it is stable and fast. I haven't had any major problems with my XP installs in the last few years.

I also like SuSE Linux 10.2 and dual boot between it and Vista a lot. If it weren't for some older programs (games mainly) I would drop XP. It's been good, but it is time to move on. I am tired of fighting 'new and unknown' for 'old and done'.

P-Meyer · #11 Post by **P-Meyer** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:46 pm

Although I am still on XP I am evaluating Linux. (At the moment I am requiring XP because of performance reasons). And if it was not for certain requirements that XP offers I would still be on Win2000. Frankly it cost me too much time (and hence money) to learn how to tune a new OS and get rid of incompatibilities everytime. I need 100% uptime for 6.5 hours / day.

Like my privacy and do not like all this stuff being send back in an ecrypted format to some vendors. Need to know what is going out.

Seems M$N is moving towards an "internet" activated & usage charged setup ("server" based). Similar to some other software which is prevalent in my business endavour. And when the server is malfunctioning (or internet or whatever) then you are stuck which costs me literally big $$$'s for every minute that goes by.

No thanks, no Vista in my future. (but I did have a play with it so I know what it is capable (and not) off.

SHoTTa35 · #12 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:18 pm

Well Vista is what it is now and will be for a while. I'm definitely enjoying the eye-candy.

Windows XP was known as "Fisher Price" because of all the bright colors and all that when it came out but now it's the defacto standard by which all other systems are judged, funny how that turned out.

Temetka · #13 Post by **Temetka** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:55 pm

I got my Powerbook G4 back from a friend of mine after I loaned it to him for a few months.

I forgot just how much I love OS X and how much I missed my G4.

I haven't touched my T41p in about 3 weeks and I doubt I'll use it again. I am considering selling the G4 and the T41p to pick up a Macbook Pro or just a nice high end 17" PBG4.

I remember when I switched to OS X as my primary operating system about 4 years ago. I am still in love with the OS and it more than handles all of my needs.

That being said Vista is more pretty than OS X. I am eagerly awaiting the launch of Leopard. I have watched the keynote and read / watched every article relating to the new OS. I will be in line on the night of the launch to pick myself up a copy.

My next OS will come from Apple. Microsoft made great gains with useability in Vista, however major underlying issues still abound and I doubt that SP1 is going to fix them.

I would love to run OS and XP on the same machine. I have a few XP apps and a few games that I will want to run. Heck I still play Master of Orion I which was released in like 1994 or something.

So for me it's OS X. Followed by XP / Vista with Linux a distant 3rd. Beryl is good and compiz is making ground, but I doubt Linux will ever make significant gains into the desktop OS for your average consumer.

Peace,
Mike

mattbiernat · #14 Post by **mattbiernat** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:15 am

tried OSX for a year and couldn't stand it; I felt caged by the system. tried Vista and got a deja vu of OSX. naturally i came back to good old XP.

#15 Post by **gator** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:27 am

I am going to stay with XP (and dual boot linux) - heck, after I saw how well my T23/600X run windows 2000, I am tempted to go back to 2000 on my T60 too. I still am on the look for the "perfect" linux distro for my computers (no, ubuntu doesn't cut it for me) .. .I am really tempted to see how a Lenovo build of Suse looks on a T60. Does anyone have that here?

I have already done everything in f JDH's list above, and did some more via TweakUI - that is one very useful program to control finer aspects of the windows UI. There was one huge BUG (atleast AFAIK) in the classic theme - whatever changes you make to the fonts, it wont reflect in the taskbar and in tabs of your programs. I found a way to change that too - unfortunately it is a registry edit. I normally don't mess with the registry, but this is the ONLY way to get this working, and so I did it.

Open regedit and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes

Double click on "MS Shell Dlg" and put in the font style you want as the value (preferably what you have for your desktop, to keep things uniform).
Double click on "MS Shell Dlg 2" and again put in the font style you want as the value (preferably same as above).

Restart, and voila!

Warning: Please do this at your own risk. Whatever you do, please remember to backup your registry first!

mattbiernat · #16 Post by **mattbiernat** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:53 am

you can create a registry file so that you don't have to mess with regedit. makes things much easier. i have like 10 hacks that i just double click one by one after a system restore.

davidspalding · #17 Post by **davidspalding** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:02 pm

jdhurst wrote:Make sure the system is running NTFS
Ensure US language, US English, US Keyboard (I am Canadian)
Lock Taskbar
Do not auto hide
Keep taskbar on top
Show quick launch
Do not hide inactive icons
Classic Start Menu
Display Run
Display Admin tools (not for everyone)
Expand Control Panel
Expand Network Connections (ease of use)
Show small icons
Do not use personalized menus
Display logoff
Slow down mouse double-click
Speed up mouse movement
Make trackpoint more sensitive (not Windows)
Enhanced pointer precision
Auto move to default dialogue
Disable ultra-nav (not Windows)
Disable Fast User switching
Disable Welcome screen
Create strong passwords
Set for maximum performance (zero eye candy)
Then set on Smooth Screen fonts and Common tasks
Reduce amount of disk for system restore
Turn off auto updates - Notify if updates are available
Disable remote invitations being sent
Windows Classic Theme
Disable desktop cleanup wizard
Set Clear Type
Set sounds for Default Beep and Email Notify to Windows 2000
Turn off sound for Start Navigation
Disable Search for network Files and Printers
Turn off Simple Folder View
Turn off Simple File Sharing
Display full path in Address
Display full path in Title
Don't hide extensions
Remember folder settings
Show Control Panel in My Computer
Disable Offline Files
View Details (instead of Icons)
Add Delete, Cut, Copy, Paste to Explorer menu bar
Add status bar to bottom of Explorer Window
Show NIC icon when connected
Restrict IE Temp files to 70Mb or less
Disable auto connection
Disable script debugging
Disable personalized menus

... JDH

ROFL ... just found this ... and noticed that I think I do about 85-90% of all this (and a lot more via TweakUI; maybe I should add to the list). XP can be tamed ... but partly by removing many of its "XP-isms."

hausman · #18 Post by **hausman** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:00 pm

jdhurst wrote:Make sure the system is running NTFS...

That's essentially what I've been doing to XP for years as well.

It's also essentially what I've done to Vista, along with getting rid of Aero, Sidebar and all the new resource squandering crap. It's amazing how much more responsive my ThinkPads are after "downgrading" them as much as possible to "Win2k."

P.S. The OP left out Windows 7 from the list.

beGi · #19 Post by **beGi** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:27 pm

davidspalding wrote:The OP left out Windows 7 from the list.

Check the post date

Although I don't like Vista Aero (usless IMO), I like it in W7b along with other new windows UI abilities (maximize/minimize, split screen, shake, and new taskbar is great)...

t140568 · #20 Post by **t140568** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:19 am

My future native OS: Linux

, in one form or another. I may change from one Distro to another, but it'll be Linux-based for sure.

I used Mandriva for about 2 years, then switched to Ubuntu about 6 months ago. My R50, Intellistation Z Pro, and the eMachines (What can I say? It was a gift.) in the living room have run flawlessly with both Linux Distros. I like the security, stability, openness, freedom, scalability, its ability to be customized, it's SPEEEEEED, the price is good too, I LOOOVE not rebooting after EVERY system change (..or nearly ANY change for that matter!), the control I have over my system, enough eye-candy to get eye-diabetes from, and sooo much more.

While I've used Linux almost exclusively for the last ~2-1/2 years, I don't know all the ins and outs of the system. More importantly, to use the system, I've learned that I don't have to.

I've used various Microsoft Windows distributions before, XP being the last. A week ago, I went back to re-familiarize myself with it. Frustration ensued very quickly. The most ridiculous problem I had was MSPaint crashing on a fresh and LEGAL install from factory restore disks! I know everyone has had good and bad experiences with just about every OS, but Windows is just not my cup o' tea.

Marin85 · #21 Post by **Marin85** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:28 am

Tim, thanks for the nice post! I could not have put it better.

i-SnipeZ · #22 Post by **i-SnipeZ** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:29 am

Depends. On my T23 it was back and forth between XP and 2k. With my T43 it was the same. Now with my T61 I have to add Vista into that mix. Ill probably end up with vista in the end. I dont know though, I really like 2k, but Vista is so charming. Though I hate fancy pretty GUI's. I HATE AVERAGE USER FRIENDLYNESS

yak · #23 Post by **yak** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 4:03 am

Right now I'm dual-booting Vista and Linux Mint. I gave up XP not long ago. The next OS will probably be Windows 7 dual booted with Linux, either Mint or Ubuntu. Most probably on the same T60 (sig.), if nothing bad happens (*knock*, *knock*).