XP Pro .......S...L...O...W...!

[Damion]

All to make a PC do what every Amiga does right out of the box; run well.  

That's simply not true. Maybe WB1.3 on an A500, but anyone who has built a classic "power" system can attest that getting an operative amiga OS can be a royal PITA.

Them fact is, computers in general are a PITA sometimes... and sometimes not. Doesn't matter what OS.

To the OP:

Someone mentioned getting the correct chipset drivers for your mobo, and that does sound like your problem. Make sure all your drivers are correct first, then move on to some of the other suggestions.

If you want to use a virus scanner, I recommend AntiVir. It's free, and not a resource hog like Norton. (There are other good scanners out there, as well.)

[Damion]

DonnyEMU wrote:
Look I am just going to say it to you folks, keeping windows up and running nicely isn't that hard, whether it's XP or Vista.. Many people do it, that's why it's in so much use (not because the company has a monopoly). People don't use bad products. period. They disappear fast from the market.

I own many PCs, a few Macs, a few Amigas and a few Linux boxes.  I don't have viruses or malware slowing down my machines period.. This isn't rocket science or hard labor..

There are Mac people here and a few Linux enthusiasts that would have you think there machines are without their own challeneges and hurdles and that's simply not true.

A lot of Amiga users in the classic days HATED CLI/SHELL and couldn't even learn to use it.. I heard many users come into the dealership (if you can remember those days) and say it was much harder than DOS (which always left me speechless)..

Your computer will work fine if you avoid sites that have malware (that's most porn sites by the way) and p2p sharing and illegal download sites..

If your computer is running slow check out Windows Defender, Ad-Aware, and others. For all the complaints about Vista I don't hear anyone complaining about viruses or malware on it, most of that is thanks to IE protected mode which runs the web browser in a sandbox and keeps the rest of the machine separated from things running in it. Other operating systems and browsers that I know of don't even come near that level of protection..

Simple maintainance is all required to keep XP happy and running fast.. Vista takes even less time.. I have been using it for over a year..

For the person earlier on the thread, X64 drivers aren't really a problem anymore, most everyone has them.. If you need help locating any of them just PM me..

All excellent points and worth noting :pint:

[Damion]

gdanko wrote:

kernel32.dll
winsock.dll
wsock.dll

You are screwed. Your kernel is infected.

Not necessarily, usually these things just "pose" as system files in different drawers. I've seen some pretty messed up XP installs, there's yet to be one that couldn't be 100% fixed with about an hours worth of work. There's really no such thing as being "screwed" IMO (unless your hardware is broke). Once you get a method down, XP is pretty easy to keep running well.

Hang in there amigadave... you'll get it sorted eventually, and the experience will only make you a better user.