Windows XP

[Brianew]

1) Backups!
     All systems the first thing you should do is backup the software in it's present state.  You never know if a RecoveryCD might go bad then you're stuck.  So, backup those included CD's.

2) Driver Download
     Next step is to gather the latest drivers for all your hardware and burn to a CD.  Nothing can be more frustrating when you need a NIC driver and can't get on the internet to find it.

3) Software Update
     Run Windows Update.  There's lots of updates to be applied most likely.  Having a DSL/Cable modem for this is a good idea bringing to somewhere, like work, where you have more bandwidth will help speed the process along.  Please check with work to see if they'll allow you to do this.

4) Clean UP
    Notebooks often come with AOL and other services you may not want.  Delete them to help clean up the system.  

5) Further clean up
     Loading a newer version?    Some notebooks come with MS Works and frequently users run MS Office.  So, remove MS Works.  Don't forget to check for other things like this.

6) Backup!
     You've now updated the OS with all the patches, you've removed the components of the 'free extra software' that you'll not be using.  Make a backup of your system.  That way if you need to recover you can restore to a better state then what the recovery CD will give you.

7) Hardware Driver Update
       This has been better then in the past but hardware drivers you downloaded in 2 should now be applied and checked.  Load a driver and check out the functions.  Windows XP has a roll-back feature which will auto uninstall the driver for you if it doesn't work.  It's useful so be sure to optimize it.

Software Install
      Now install Office and the software you're going to run.

9) Optmize interface
      Some people want the speed out of a notebook and clicking some of the WinXP fancy interface features off can give you this.  One quick way to do this is turn on the Classic Win2000 interface this helps to reduce the newer geegaws that are in XP.  But, this can be a slow process.

10) Backups
     Don't forget to include backups.  This is probably the most frequent end  user mistake.  They will backup at some time and never seem to get around to it.   Once they lose everything then they decide to start backing up next time.    This not only goes for Windows but for any other system.  Backups make things so much easier.

11) Amiga Forever or UAE
     If you aren't going to use Amithlon, which is limited for notebooks, I'd recommend Amiga Forever.  This is an Amiga site after all isn't your true goal to run the Amiga Workbench and software?

     

[mikeymike]

Talking of BIOS's my crappie BIOS doesn't have an option to enable HT on my CPU, even though my CPU support such an option...
Any ideas as to how I can enable HT?

I don't know for definite how hyperthreading works deep down, I would guess it requires at least some motherboard support, so age of motherboard *may* be a factor.  A mobo BIOS update might help, but look for something specific in the respective manufacturer's website regarding what the BIOS updates do.  Support for an even newer CPU might encompass what you're after.

I wouldn't regard my advice on newer P4 related matters that highly, the last P4 I had anything to do with was a 1.7 pre-Northwood :-)

If you're using Windows say NT4 or 2000, it should detect it as dual CPU, so I've heard from a reliable source.  XP will detect it as a single HT capable CPU.

You might want to download something like wcpu 3.1 to read off the capabilities of your CPU and motherboard.  It might give you some more information to go on.

[jd997uk]

Black Viper has a pretty comprehensive list of what the services are, and what can be (reasonably) safely turned off.
Other than that, as others have said, turn off every bit of eye candy, get hold of a tweaking tool, that allows you to adjust some 'hidden' settings and read up on TweakXP to get the lowdown on what really works and what, err, don't.
It's all moot to me tho', XP is still far too resource hungry IMHO. I'll stick with W2K.

-john

[Tomas]

Turn of all kinds of eyecandy, do not use web folder but use classic ones.. most important thing is to get rid of the folder auto preview of media files, the preview will really slow down your machine ALOT.
Still even after turning off all this, XP is still just not as responsive as for example win2k...

Win2k is a much better OS i must say.

[T_Bone]

mikeymike wrote:

I will concur with this. Some laptops are very slow when compared to desktop machines.

The main thing that really gets on my nerves with my laptop (Dell C400) is the really slow disk.  A benchmark on my PC's disk comes out at around 35 - 40MB/sec.  The same benchmark on my laptop comes out between 5 - 10MB/sec.  As my laptop has an absurd amount of RAM (half a gig, absurd IMO), I allocate half of that to a ramdisk and install OpenOffice and Mozilla to there.

At least it runs silent or very near silent :-)

I wish they made a laptop with multiple hard drives striped for "better than laptop" performance.  :-(

[DanDude]

Install Linux and AmigaForever   :-D

screw windows!

[Cyberus]

If I had a tenner for every time someone said 'eye candy' in this thread....

On topic, I switched back to Win2k on my laptop and am much happier as a result!

Cheers :pint:

BADHead wrote:
I just bought a new laptop with Windows XP pre-installed and going to give it a bit of test drive tonight
so i would be interested in reading some of good/bad
points and tips -sensible comments ?  :-D

What CPU, m/b chipset, audio chipset and vga adapter does it have?

If it's a VIA chipset then download the latest Hyperion 4-in-1's from VIA Arena, and  also get the IDE Miniport driver from the same site, and the comboaudio driver.  Get latest ATI catalyst or NVidia detonator drivers dependent on what vga card you have.  I recommend  CPUIdle on a laptop as it will increase your battery life considerably.  Also load hi-performance defaults in AMI BIOS, or Optimized defaults in Award BIOS, or System Turbo Settings in Phoenix BIOS.

Or just buy Zeta and install that.  BeOS on the same hardware is much more responsive than winblows and is much more Amiga-like in use.  Ask Leander how great it is! :-)

I've just ordered my copy of RC1.

[DonnyEMU]

So much anti-windows sentiment..

If you really want to use XP and get optimal performance the simple solution (not confused with going to tweakxp.com is to go to:

Total Idea Software

and Download TweakXP Pro.. I guarantee you will see a serious performance increase just by running that program (even the trial) and find the whole experience a lot more happy.. This is the best XP speed-up on the market and it's a great easy to use tweaker..

[Belial6]

Good:  Picture handling.  The MP3/WMA handling is kind of neat, but not really that useful, as your media player of choice will be where you deal with those generally.

Bad:  Networking.  XP has known networking problems.  It frequently tries to reauthenticate with other computers, and often is incapable, even with proper usernames and passwords.  It's not unusable mind you, but definitly anoying.

[N7VQM]

 With that turned on, simply clicking to open and moving the mouse around in the Start menu drove the CPU to 90+% utilization.

I suspect this has more to do with specific hardware than it does with operating system.  I have had expierence with two Dell Inspiron 8000's identical in every aspect except OS.  The video hardware in these laptops is/was ATI's Mobility Radeon M4 w/32MB of VRAM.  Mine runs Win2k, my friends ran WinXP Pro.  Both machines exhibited substantial CPU load (80-90%) with menu drop shadows enabled.

When Phil's machine kicked the bit-bucket, Dell replaced it with an Inspiron 8200.  This machine runs WinXP Pro and has nVidia's GeForce 4 Go video hardware instead of ATI.  It doesn't flinch a bit with the drop shadows.

However, I installed the Catalyst 3.8 drivers on my laptop recently and I have yet to determine if the CPU load has improved.

[mikeymike]

Bad: Networking. XP has known networking problems. It frequently tries to reauthenticate with other computers, and often is incapable, even with proper usernames and passwords. It's not unusable mind you, but definitly anoying.

That's just SMB (Windows file/print services), that prob is with every version of Windows.

Disable SMB.  It's bad for you.

[DeXXo]

BADHead wrote:
I just bought a new laptop with Windows XP pre-installed and going to give it a bit of test drive tonight
so i would be interested in reading some of good/bad
points and tips -sensible comments ?  :-D

You should install service pack right away.

[BADHead]

Thanx for all the replys after trying it i cannot see any great advantage over my old os Win 98SE as iam thinking of installing it on my new laptop

[Brianew]

Some of the advantages you can't see is WinXP does away with the old 16bit core.  So, if your goal is to do DOS stuff and 16bit games then Win98SE is probably a better option. If your goal is to do more modern 32bit software WinXP is a 32bit core.   You can still run as Window98SE for certain programs if you need it goto Properties of the software and select Run in compatibility mode and choose 95/98/NT or 2K.

If you have a new laptop, as in recently store bought, I'd run WinXP over 98SE.   WinXP is more stable then 98SE.  Also, if you have a new laptop Win98SE may not have all the drivers you need for the hardware.  Thus, make sure you have the proper drivers for 98SE otherwise you'll have to reinstall WinXP.

[Belial6]

That's just SMB (Windows file/print services), that prob is with every version of Windows.

Disable SMB.  It's bad for you.

No, it's not.  The SMB file and print sharing works fine on every other version of windows.  I won't debate whether it is the best file sharing protocal or not, but it was stable on every version prior to XP.

As for 98se vs. XP... XP is dramatically more stable, so if you are really annoyed by having to reboot our computer every day, XP would be better.  Of course 2000 is almost as stable as XP AND the networking works.