Just a suggestion, in the bad old days when I did PC support, the cause for this problem was a setting in Outlook Express. I haven't seen XP, but in older versions of Outllok Express, you went to the Tools menu, then to Options, chose the connections tab, nd unchecked "hang up when finished sending and receiveing email". As to why that option might be set differently in different user logins, ask the smart folks in Redmond...</strong><hr></blockquote>
This ain't the bad old days any more! I have no problems managing Outlook & Outlook Express in Win 95-Win2k but XP seems to think it's doing you a favor by removing certain options (in the name of simplification) so you can't change certain things the way you used to. Maybe there ARE ways to change these same settings, but it's not the same as it was for previous versions of Windows & dial up networking & Outlook.
Uh, I believe it was around $1500. It was the middle-of-the-road Dell tower (4300 I think) not the el-cheapo one or the super-"fast" one.
<hr></blockquote>
My bad, I was just thinking that since a 1.6GHz P4 at Dell costs about $999 now of days. Didn't realize it was an older model.
[quote]
But my feeling was that A: Dell is the most popular brand of PC for consumers and prosumers out there, and B: this was a middle-of-the-road configuration so presumably a good reference point performance-wise for a lot of PC geeks. And I dunno - I was just amazed at how drag-ass slow it seemed for such a "modern PC."
<hr></blockquote>
You are correct on both of your points. I can only assume that since your experience has been so much different than my own that there is either some hardware issue or a misconfiguration problem. Your boot times are especially nasty, no modern PC with XP should take more than 60 seconds to boot. Wish I could tell you what to change to give your mother a nicer computing experience but I don't know without looking at the system.
My university's IT staff has had fatal incompatibilities between "identical" machines that arrive in the same shipment with the same configuration. They found out, to their lasting dismay, that you have to look at the build numbers for Windows (any variety), IE and the Office apps to have any idea whether or not they'll work well together. MS tweaks constantly without changing the version numbers.
Gah.
It probably doesn't help that identically configured PCs from Dell probably ship with different internal components, too.
<strong>My friend who has a 1.6ghz P4 called me up the other day and told me to install Brood War (i just got it) so I could play him online. So I clicked "install" and less than 30 seconds later it was done and I told him, "done." He's all, "Damn, how fast is your computer, that was hella quick!" I said "400mhz." He went from all amazed to all "ha ha what a piece of shit." Some people are idiots.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did you kick his ass? If I were you I would have kicked his ass. (in Brood War, that is)
<strong>My university's IT staff has had fatal incompatibilities between "identical" machines that arrive in the same shipment with the same configuration...It probably doesn't help that identically configured PCs from Dell probably ship with different internal components, too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well this is just another part of the "why Windblows ain't so hot / is still a hit-or-miss proposition" as compared to Mac OS X, even on much "slower" hardware. But yah, in general I wish I new a way to speed up the boot process and such. I didn't really tell her how God-awful slow it was - figured what she doesn't know won't hurt her.
I dont think that any one can say that windows (ESPECIALLY XP) isnt a POS while keeping a straight face. However it does have its ups as well. For an experienced user there are MANY mroe options to fool around with, however that also means that you have to enter 3 different control panels to keep it from asking you for a password after every 5 minutes of inactivity.
Dont get started on speed, though people bitch about Aqua, windows amazes me. I have a 1.2ghz Athalon, 256 (NOT enough, win2k takes 100mb on its own) megs of ram, a GF3, and two IBM Deskstar hard drives, yet still it takes a few seconds to load the control panels tab. Now maybe aquas windows resize slowly, but MAN, you should see how slow 2k runs at times (10 seconds for the window to redraw...)
[quote]From hitting the power key to getting to the login screen was 30 seconds. Then after he logged into the network there was about a 15-20 second wait before he was at the desktop and everything was loaded. That is about twice as fast as any Mac I have ever seen.<hr></blockquote>
No bullshit here:
my G4/400 takes 25 sec for startup (till the login screen appears) and 5 seconds to log-in
i'm a lifetime windows user and the awful windows xp is a major reason why my next computer will be a mac. of course, the near constant inexplicable crashes of my last two PCs contributed a little as well.
Isn't a lot of the Mac bootup time taken checking the RAM? The more RAM you have, the longer it takes to check, therefore, the longer it takes to boot. You could disable the RAM check in OS 9, can you in OS X?
That's a good question. But I think it's an OF thing so once you set it in OS 9 the setting should carry over to OS X even if you reinstall everything from scratch.
I use 3 Macs and 1 PC (I have to ) and recently had to update the PC since I only buy them when I absolutely have to. The old one was a 300MHz PII Dell.
I got tired of crappy PCs, so I shelled out the bucks for a custom made gaming rig even though it's not used for gaming. I knew the customer support would be needed often, and I knew the parts would be top notch.
It's all tricked out with a 1800+ Athlon, 512 PC2100 DDR, an o/c Radeon 8500, SB Audigy, and the new special edition WD 100GB HDD. It runs XP Pro. I just added a 32x CD-R.
With this set-up, XP screams, and so do the apps. Obviously, I had to test out a few games and they're great. Office loads instantly. PS is used heavily, and I notice that some tasks take longer, some the same, and some shorter than with my Dual 800. On average in PS, I can't tell a real difference in performance.
Gripes: the worst thing is that the PC uses an old PCI DSL modem that I had lying around, and I had to use Win2K drivers from the web to get it working. This is really 3Com's fault, since they got out of the modem business before XP came out. This causes an average of a re-boot every 2 days or so, and sometimes the system hangs when re-booting b/c the modem isn't reset. Before installing the modem, XP loaded to the log-in screen in only about 15-20 seconds. Now it takes about 30-40.
XP is also geared toward computer illiterates. I've been using PCs long enough to feel quite confident in my Winblows troubleshooting abilities (which are definately required), but XP has forced me to relearn certain tricks.
Bottom line: I still only use PCs b/c I have to, and I'll never use another Dell or any other major OEM. However, if you get a custom computer properly configured by PC geeks, it has potential to be quite faster at many ordinary tasks than the current mac lineup. However, the gain in speed still doesn't make up for that mac experience that keeps us coming back for more. Also, components are more of a factor than processor/processor speed. I think the Athlon is a great chip, but it really works in this case b/c of the DDR RAM, the super-fast HDD w/ 8MB cache, the o/c Radeon 8500, etc. If the new PM lineup included DDR, 10000RPM drives w/ huge cache, and the real GF4 (not MX), you'd see the macs take on a whole new level of performance, even with the same G4 processor. Using this PC has really made me crave all of these features on a new mac... even though I can't wait for next year and that G5!!!
I'm curious as to how many of you XP bashers have actually spent more than an hour or so using it. I installed XP on my 2 year old PIII 600, and it has been as close to flawless as I could expect for ANY OS. And XP is not even officially supported on my hardware by my vendor, Dell. The only problem is with NVidia's crappy Detanator drivers, which is partially my fault for always wanting the latest and greatest driver. As for boot time, XP absolutley crushes any previous version of windows with the possible exception of ME. My machine boots in just over a minute, good considering my hardware. My friend has a G3 500 iBook running OS X, and the boot time on that machine is abyssmal. You Mac guys have to understand the inherent complications with an OS that needs to support potentially millions of different hardware configurations, with drivers written by who knows who. Considering that, I think XP does pretty damn well. OS X is great too, I'm not dissing, but lets try and be fair here.
<strong>I don't know. Maybe it's a design thing. But I feel boot times of OSX should be able to be a bit faster.</strong><hr></blockquote>
First: it shuts down incredibly fast. So when you're watching those divx porn and you hear your mother approaching, you shut down your computer and jumpt into your bed in about 6.436 seconds. :cool:
Second: it's a pretty fast startup for a UNIX system.
Third: I never shut down my Mac, I just put it to sleep, thats all. OS X isn't designed to be shut down but to run for weeks, aw, even centuries. Okay, let's say decades
Ok, defend your OS all you want, but don't come in here with bullshit statements like your system boots in 3 seconds. You lose all credibility</strong><hr></blockquote>
LOL, I admit that figure is ridiculous, but I have a friend with a Sony VAIO P4 1.7 DDR that boots into XP in less than 15 seconds. I know, I didn't believe it until I saw it either.
<strong> As for boot time, XP absolutley crushes any previous version of windows with the possible exception of ME.
....
You Mac guys have to understand the inherent complications with an OS that needs to support potentially millions of different hardware configurations, with drivers written by who knows who. Considering that, I think XP does pretty damn well. OS X is great too, I'm not dissing, but lets try and be fair here.</strong><hr></blockquote>
First off, are you seriously saying that prior to XP, your favorite version of Windows was ME? Wow. I haven' t talked to a single person who doesn't hate ME more than any version since 3.1.
Also, bear in mind that many of us aren't typical "Mac guys." I have much more experience with, and expertise in, Windows and the whole PC world, than I have with MacOS. I just visit this forum because I really prefer the Mac experience.
It's true, though, you'll get plenty of blind Windows haters here, just like the other 95% of the world has plenty of blind Mac haters mixed-in.
First off, are you seriously saying that prior to XP, your favorite version of Windows was ME? Wow. I haven' t talked to a single person who doesn't hate ME more than any version since 3.1.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, I didn't say that, I just said it booted much faster than 98 SE. But now that you mention it, yeah it was my next fav. The bottom line is that MS tried to make the 9x platform comfortable during it's last year on this earth by porting some industrial strength Win 2k features to it. As long as ME liked your hardware, it was great, as it was for me. Unfortunately, it seems as if it barfed on many more hw configs than it liked. Just got lucky I guess
Well, I didn't say that, I just said it booted much faster than 98 SE. But now that you mention it, yeah it was my next fav. The bottom line is that MS tried to make the 9x platform comfortable during it's last year on this earth by porting some industrial strength Win 2k features to it. As long as ME liked your hardware, it was great, as it was for me. Unfortunately, it seems as if it barfed on many more hw configs than it liked. Just got lucky I guess </strong><hr></blockquote>
Really lucky, using Win ME? There is no such thing as luck, its called bravery. I applaud you for that courageous endeavor.
Comments
<strong>
Just a suggestion, in the bad old days when I did PC support, the cause for this problem was a setting in Outlook Express. I haven't seen XP, but in older versions of Outllok Express, you went to the Tools menu, then to Options, chose the connections tab, nd unchecked "hang up when finished sending and receiveing email". As to why that option might be set differently in different user logins, ask the smart folks in Redmond...</strong><hr></blockquote>
This ain't the bad old days any more! I have no problems managing Outlook & Outlook Express in Win 95-Win2k but XP seems to think it's doing you a favor by removing certain options (in the name of simplification) so you can't change certain things the way you used to. Maybe there ARE ways to change these same settings, but it's not the same as it was for previous versions of Windows & dial up networking & Outlook.
Uh, I believe it was around $1500. It was the middle-of-the-road Dell tower (4300 I think) not the el-cheapo one or the super-"fast" one.
<hr></blockquote>
My bad, I was just thinking that since a 1.6GHz P4 at Dell costs about $999 now of days. Didn't realize it was an older model.
[quote]
But my feeling was that A: Dell is the most popular brand of PC for consumers and prosumers out there, and B: this was a middle-of-the-road configuration so presumably a good reference point performance-wise for a lot of PC geeks. And I dunno - I was just amazed at how drag-ass slow it seemed for such a "modern PC."
<hr></blockquote>
You are correct on both of your points. I can only assume that since your experience has been so much different than my own that there is either some hardware issue or a misconfiguration problem. Your boot times are especially nasty, no modern PC with XP should take more than 60 seconds to boot. Wish I could tell you what to change to give your mother a nicer computing experience but I don't know without looking at the system.
Gah.
It probably doesn't help that identically configured PCs from Dell probably ship with different internal components, too.
<strong>My friend who has a 1.6ghz P4 called me up the other day and told me to install Brood War (i just got it) so I could play him online. So I clicked "install" and less than 30 seconds later it was done and I told him, "done." He's all, "Damn, how fast is your computer, that was hella quick!" I said "400mhz." He went from all amazed to all "ha ha what a piece of shit." Some people are idiots.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Did you kick his ass? If I were you I would have kicked his ass. (in Brood War, that is)
[ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: crawlingparanoia ]</p>
<strong>My university's IT staff has had fatal incompatibilities between "identical" machines that arrive in the same shipment with the same configuration...It probably doesn't help that identically configured PCs from Dell probably ship with different internal components, too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well this is just another part of the "why Windblows ain't so hot / is still a hit-or-miss proposition" as compared to Mac OS X, even on much "slower" hardware. But yah, in general I wish I new a way to speed up the boot process and such. I didn't really tell her how God-awful slow it was - figured what she doesn't know won't hurt her.
<img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Dont get started on speed, though people bitch about Aqua, windows amazes me. I have a 1.2ghz Athalon, 256 (NOT enough, win2k takes 100mb on its own) megs of ram, a GF3, and two IBM Deskstar hard drives, yet still it takes a few seconds to load the control panels tab. Now maybe aquas windows resize slowly, but MAN, you should see how slow 2k runs at times (10 seconds for the window to redraw...)
Progress report...10 PCs in all.
Every single Intellimouse shipped has died.
3 floppy drives were replaced
2 LCDs were replaced
1failed HDD
3 failing DC fans...you can hear them
They all have assorted software/hardware problems even though we have a ghost image server keeping them sync'd up...crazy.
No bullshit here:
my G4/400 takes 25 sec for startup (till the login screen appears) and 5 seconds to log-in
I use 3 Macs and 1 PC (I have to
I got tired of crappy PCs, so I shelled out the bucks for a custom made gaming rig even though it's not used for gaming. I knew the customer support would be needed often, and I knew the parts would be top notch.
It's all tricked out with a 1800+ Athlon, 512 PC2100 DDR, an o/c Radeon 8500, SB Audigy, and the new special edition WD 100GB HDD. It runs XP Pro. I just added a 32x CD-R.
With this set-up, XP screams, and so do the apps. Obviously, I had to test out a few games
Gripes: the worst thing is that the PC uses an old PCI DSL modem that I had lying around, and I had to use Win2K drivers from the web to get it working. This is really 3Com's fault, since they got out of the modem business before XP came out. This causes an average of a re-boot every 2 days or so, and sometimes the system hangs when re-booting b/c the modem isn't reset. Before installing the modem, XP loaded to the log-in screen in only about 15-20 seconds. Now it takes about 30-40.
XP is also geared toward computer illiterates. I've been using PCs long enough to feel quite confident in my Winblows troubleshooting abilities (which are definately required), but XP has forced me to relearn certain tricks.
Bottom line: I still only use PCs b/c I have to, and I'll never use another Dell or any other major OEM. However, if you get a custom computer properly configured by PC geeks, it has potential to be quite faster at many ordinary tasks than the current mac lineup. However, the gain in speed still doesn't make up for that mac experience
Thoughts?
Ok, defend your OS all you want, but don't come in here with bullshit statements like your system boots in 3 seconds. You lose all credibility
<strong>I don't know. Maybe it's a design thing. But I feel boot times of OSX should be able to be a bit faster.</strong><hr></blockquote>
First: it shuts down incredibly fast. So when you're watching those divx porn and you hear your mother approaching, you shut down your computer and jumpt into your bed in about 6.436 seconds. :cool:
Second: it's a pretty fast startup for a UNIX system.
Third: I never shut down my Mac, I just put it to sleep, thats all. OS X isn't designed to be shut down but to run for weeks, aw, even centuries. Okay, let's say decades
Greets
olli_g
<strong>
Ok, defend your OS all you want, but don't come in here with bullshit statements like your system boots in 3 seconds. You lose all credibility</strong><hr></blockquote>
LOL, I admit that figure is ridiculous, but I have a friend with a Sony VAIO P4 1.7 DDR that boots into XP in less than 15 seconds. I know, I didn't believe it until I saw it either.
<strong> As for boot time, XP absolutley crushes any previous version of windows with the possible exception of ME.
....
You Mac guys have to understand the inherent complications with an OS that needs to support potentially millions of different hardware configurations, with drivers written by who knows who. Considering that, I think XP does pretty damn well. OS X is great too, I'm not dissing, but lets try and be fair here.</strong><hr></blockquote>
First off, are you seriously saying that prior to XP, your favorite version of Windows was ME? Wow. I haven' t talked to a single person who doesn't hate ME more than any version since 3.1.
Also, bear in mind that many of us aren't typical "Mac guys." I have much more experience with, and expertise in, Windows and the whole PC world, than I have with MacOS. I just visit this forum because I really prefer the Mac experience.
It's true, though, you'll get plenty of blind Windows haters here, just like the other 95% of the world has plenty of blind Mac haters mixed-in.
<strong>
First off, are you seriously saying that prior to XP, your favorite version of Windows was ME? Wow. I haven' t talked to a single person who doesn't hate ME more than any version since 3.1.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, I didn't say that, I just said it booted much faster than 98 SE. But now that you mention it, yeah it was my next fav. The bottom line is that MS tried to make the 9x platform comfortable during it's last year on this earth by porting some industrial strength Win 2k features to it. As long as ME liked your hardware, it was great, as it was for me. Unfortunately, it seems as if it barfed on many more hw configs than it liked. Just got lucky I guess
<strong>
Well, I didn't say that, I just said it booted much faster than 98 SE. But now that you mention it, yeah it was my next fav. The bottom line is that MS tried to make the 9x platform comfortable during it's last year on this earth by porting some industrial strength Win 2k features to it. As long as ME liked your hardware, it was great, as it was for me. Unfortunately, it seems as if it barfed on many more hw configs than it liked. Just got lucky I guess
Really lucky, using Win ME? There is no such thing as luck, its called bravery. I applaud you for that courageous endeavor.