Date: 2008-11-02 11:52:02 Created: null
The adventures of starting to use XP on my most used computer ...
Yeah, you've got to hand that to them even wether you like it or not. Against a few odds and bets I'm in the process of installing XP Pro on Terminus right while writing this. Not only does Pigbox run Mandrake all the time (and I can't live without serving up my site anyway), Terminus is also actually in the need of some extra stability at times. I can't wait to try XP out a little more extensively to see if it lives up to the image it sets for itself.
Of course, I'm not so daft that I would try to upgrade my old Windows 98 or overwrite any files right away (and besides, XP informed me that it wouldn't upgrade due to language differences). Nope, I'm giving XP it's own partition in the most distant outlands of the 60 Gb hard drive, completely fresh ground taken from the mostly unused Red Hat partition and just now converted to NTFS. More information as it happens ...
Copying files right now. What will be really interesting is to see if XP plays nice and leaves XOSL be or if it overwrites the MBR. I don't really expect it to play nice, but you can always hope ...
Alright, time for the second reboot in the process. Setup will complete in approximately 39 minutes. Right then. The MBR seems to have been taken over already anyway, but XOSL shall return!
Oh, and soon I'll have the fun of removing Messenger and saying no to "important" updates again, whee. You can't just leave a new Windows installation be just as it is right away, no way. You always need to tweak something, and then it's nice to have something as annoying as this to aim your energy at.
Let's try and keep track of the reboots, I have a feeling another one is coming very soon ...
Okay, it took a while. No reboots since last note, and there might actually only be one left before we're done. Approximately four minutes left, and it's saving settings it says. This is way too easy, but then I recall it being like that when I tried it on Pigbox as well. So, rebooting for the last time now?
Yep, booting XP. Please wait, okay then ... Right, let's spend a few minutes setting up my computer, eh?
Some time since last note. Messenger is removed and I'm downloading and installing pretty much everything Windows Update has to offer. Couldn't spot the dreaded Messenger reinstaller critical update anywhere, so it might have slipped through by being called something else in Swedish. We'll see, it's not like Messenger will slip through in the end anyway ... More than 6 of 46 megabytes down already, not bad.
One more thing about the looks, XP sure looks a damn sight prettier on a big bright 17 inch screen in 1280*960 than on a small grubby 14 inch screen in 1024*768 or 800*600. No surprise of course, but pretty noteworthy difference all the same.
Aha! The refresh rate is lower than it used to be! Finally something out of order! To the rescue!
Oh, solved it. XP didn't think 85 Hz was supported by the monitor, showing all refresh rates displayed the option again, and of course it worked as it always has. Nice to confirm once again that a human knows better than a computer :-) ...
There! ZoneAlarm, Opera and 2x Explorer installed as well. Everything else will have to wait for another day I think, including restoring XOSL. Work starts too early tomorrow ...
Okay, restored XOSL while brushing my teeth (and found out that it won't boot from its own partition but seems to have installed its bootloader on the Windows 98 partition, so I can choose which of the two to run when I pick Windows 98 in XOSL. Interesting, will look more into that later ...) but that's definitely it! Good night!
July 19th 2002
Now I can get serious about XP! I got around to installing Trillian and moving over all my user settings and logs to XP, plus some essential stuff for talking to Bonnie, just now. So now there's not much that I use regularly that isn't here, except games of course. Windows found some new unidentified USB hardware when I booted, I wonder what that might be ...
All this fancy evolution, and still no way of avoiding reboots when you update drivers for things ... Ah well, they can't make everything good at once I guess ...
There, installed Winamp3 as well. Oh, the Metal Gear Solid 2 theme still sounds great ...
July 20th 2002
I'm proceeding with installing more software in XP after it occured to me that I was reluctant to boot back to 98 after using XP for a while. Everything's working perfectly as far as the OS is concerned. I haven't really pushed its stability before, but I am a little bit now. Scanning with Ad-aware, running Limewire (which is scanning for files as well), Trillain and Winamp3. Things slow down a bit every now and then, and Opera recently crashed (for its own reasons I think), but nothing is shaking the OS up yet. Had a pretty hard crash of Winamp3 yesterday as well, but that didn't leave any consequences either. Responses slow down when the processor load reached the 90:s of percent, but nothing seems to crash.
And I like the process list and all the other stuff a ctrl-alt-delete brings up as well. Especially seeing just how much processor and memory each active process is drawing. Winamp3 is much lower on processor time than I ever could have imagined, but programs also take a lot more memory than I would have expected. Most of them gets several megabytes, and Opera gets so many that it's almost scary sometimes. Guess it's the OS memory allocation giving everyone plenty, it's not like memory is running out anyway.
It doesn't feel like Windows 98 would have survived this kind of treatment for this long, but XP even feels quite responsive, at least when I'm just clicking around menus, looking at the playlist and so on. Maybe I should try relaunching Opera and see what it says then ... The screensaver was pretty jerky anyway.
Oh, that worked nicely as well. Took a little longer than usual, but no other problems, not even a stutter in the music. Not bad.
It's almost annoying how quickly I'm starting to like XP after being so much against it for various reasons. That's exactly the reason you shouldn't set your decisions and opinions in stone when you first make them, it just makes it harder to change them later on when you've found out more on the subject ...
Ah, Ad-aware's finished scanning! The processor load sank from 99 to 43 percent. That's what you get when you scan the hard drive too much :-) ... And once Limewire finishes scanning as well things will get really relaxed for the little processor again.
July 24th 2002
Have been using XP all the time on this computer for almost a week now, and it still feels all nice and cosy. I've been leaving the computer on whilst at work and things like that, and it's bevahed perfectly all the time. Still no games installed, but that'll probably come soon (don't feel like going back into 98 for things :-), as will configuration of Outlook and transfer of all the old emails. I've been using the web interface for my email so far in XP, and Outlook really feels more convenient when you want the emails downloaded anyway :-) ...
Okay, installing Warcraft III. Time to see if XP makes any difference, and to find out if it's a simple file copy to get my saves over here. Otherwise I'll have to stick to 98 for gaming for finishing one game more before leaving :-) ...