Windows XP Home Ed. concerns

As everyone by now knows, a new, reliable computer is at this moment speeding its way across the country headed for my doorstep, and I have a question about the Windows XP Home Edition that it runs:

Is it true that you have to call Microsoft every time you add or remove a peripheral? I received this from a trusted advisor who knows his way around computers: (See #2)

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I know some horror stories about 2000 and XP:

1. Both of these run only in "protected mode". That means the processor
needs more clock cycles to execute instructions (probably not all
instructions). This will slow things down.
At least with the massive speed upgrading you are getting, you should
still have a major net gain in speed.

1a. Protected mode only means no DOS.

2. For XP only - I have heard absolute horror stories about their
anti-pirating authorization system. They may have eased this, but I
have heard that if you make any hardware change in your computer, even
add or remove a hard drive, XP goes on strike until you call
Microsoft and get it reauthorized. Limit of three of these, after that
you have to buy another copy of XP.

So one story (possibly only rumor) goes, an executive who installed
XP on his laptop finds that he had to reauthorize his installation of
XP after docking a removable hard drive.
Then he gets on the plane with that hard drive removed. XP requires
reauthorization again! He can't get any work done on the plane!
When he lands, he calls Microsoft and they tell him that he can only
reauthorize by calling the 800 number from the phone number on record
in the registration of that copy of XP.
The way I heard it, that's why some major investment firm (I somewhat
remember it being Solomon Brothers) decided that their next operating
system upgrade will be to Linux and not a Microsoft product.

It may not be that bad, or may not be that bad now, but I am wary.
You may not be able to do much hard drive swapping.
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Any thoughts on this?
If this is truly the case, that you have to call Microsoft every time you add or remove a component and you only get three tries, that could cause some real trouble. I'd use up two of them in the migration process (add HD, then remove it) plus I have two cameras, a printer, and maybe a SPECTROMETER (yay!) to install after that. That's six hardware change operations, and I'd have wasted two copies of XP, and looking to buy a third, if this were to happen.

Anyone here run XP and have any problems adding or removing parts from your computer?

Craig,
I have added and removed external devices to my XP system with no problem whatsoever. Don't know about internal devices but you won't likely be doing to much changing in there will you?

Heres the low down on it...

Windows 2000 and XP do indeed run in protected mode, but this has to do with the memory not CPU cycles, this means that if Internet Exploder (Of wait, it's Ford Exploder Internet Explorer, not the other way around) crashes it doesn't bring down every otehr application with it. This laptop takes FOREVER to boot (Just because it's slow, no fault of Windows 2000 which actually loads much faster than 98 ever could) so I have literally put it in standby at night and ran it for weeks at a time without rebooting, it's quite stable. Also, you only use 2-3% of your CPU most the time anyway, I am currently using...28%, Internet Explorer is responsable for about 15% of that and Task manager about 10% so the ststem itself is using about 3%. Make use of the Task Manager (Quickest way to get to it is control shift escape in 2000, don't have to go though the Conrol+Alt+Delete screen, XP might be slightly different)

Also, I don't remember what chip you finally got (Please let it be an AMD chip) but the new chips are designed to work with XP anyway.

It is true that DOS isn't as...robust as in previous versions, don't know all the science behind it but something to do with the supreme stability of the OS meant that sacrifices had to be made in DOS performance, games probably won't work too well on DOS but simple apps should.

If you needed DOS you could go buy a junker PC for DOS only or get somone to help you set up a dual boot.


Yes it's true "Product Activation" as it is called, is a pain in the butt. I haven't delt with it at all to be honest with you but here's what I know.

It takes like a fingerprint of your PC, if you changed nearly every component in your PC yes, you'd have to re-activate, but simple upgrades and modifications (No not that kind of modification...how's the computer know you added a Lux. Star??) will not cause any problems, I seriously doubt adding a removable drive would cause the product to hiccup but who knows, your Windows XP should be running an OEM version anyway...that means it doesn't have product activation at all, another reason I doubt the laptop story.


In short, don't worry about anything you've heard...you're going from (Warning: Medaphor to follow) a match to the sun, and you'll likely never look back.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by McGizmo:
Craig,
I have added and removed external devices to my XP system with no problem whatsoever. Don't know about internal devices but you won't likely be doing to much changing in there will you?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm going to temporarily install the 13GB drive out of this computer so I can migrate everything over; then pull it back out again so I can still make use of the PC it came out of. I hope this is where XP won't puke on me. I'm guessing everything else would be considered "external" because they would plug into existing jacks on the back of the computer and wait for the hardware detection wizard to find them. The cameras would use the USB ports; the printer and spectrometer would use the parallel port. Only the temporary addition of the HD would require the case to be opened.

Added a second ( internal ) hard drive to relative's XP system about two weeks ago, no activation message or problem occurred. I've been running XP since November, it's been fine. May want to check out this site regarding activation triggers:
http://www.aumha.org/a/wpaz.htm

Joe

Shouldn't be a problem...just make sure you get the slave/master things all set right, and if you have to re-do any IDE cable remember this: If it has a blue end, the blue end must attach to the motherboard. Depending on how you hook up the drives, it is entirely possible that the computer would boot up your old OS and not Win XP, but you should still be able to copy over anything you need.

XP Horror Story #3,037:

My daughter bought her Compaq laptop (shut up David) with XP on it back in November. All has been peachy-keen-cool... she loves it!

Then last week, the whole thing locked up. She tried to Ctrl+Alt+Del out... tried everything. Nothing. So she hit the button. She went off to work and returned later to restart the computer. Blue screen... wierd messages about restarting in safe mode... all kinds of stuff she'd never seen before. She tried to restart in safe mode. Couldn't get beyond the blue screen.

I told her to call Compaq for help in getting past that. Compaq told her that it was not a Compaq issue that it was an XP issue and the only help for it was to go to the windowsupdate site and download the fix for this specific problem. Mind you, my daughter is young but she's not stupid... she told the idiot that if she could get to the windows update site, she really wouldn't have need for the update, now would she?... DUH!... Then the idiot sweetly offered to send her the update on a CD but it would take about three weeks and she's going to have to reformat anyway.

Of course, calling Microsoft and bitching them out is out of the question... what would be the point?

So the poor kid ended up having to reformat her computer... lost everything... she was devastated.

As she was trying to get everything set up again and get to windowsupdate to download the fix, it locked up again. She ended up having to reformat AGAIN... and she finally now has the update and is running smooth.

Upon her recommendation, I bought the same exact unit that she had. I use my computer for my business. Yes, I back stuff up (well, now I do... shut up David)... but I sure don't need this to happen to me. So I went and downloaded all of the updates for XP... it took about 2 hours... 16 updates... 12 of them were security issues!!!

Another thing... my laptop has only one slot for an extra drive... so I switch out the A: drive and CD/DVD drive all the time... no issues.

I have xp pro. no product activaton needed. I wouldnt use the standard version if somebody paid me. if all future microsoft systems have activation I will just have to learn linux which is probly better than xp if you get a good distribution.

I see no reason for Craig to anticipate problems with his new system. When and if a problem does occur, it will likely be from an unanticipated direction and source

I haven't followed all of the threads but assume that this hard drive is not in a working networkable computer? Otherwise the files could be moved over the network. I was real impressed with how my new XP system recognized the existing router and devices w/o need to get in there and configure things. I have an external Western Digital HD connected via IEEE 1394 (if I got that right; fire wire if I didn't) and it is where I keep my backups for the Laptop as well as PC.

One ***** I have is that I use a USB card reader for download of camera generated images into the PC. I like to delete the images with explorer instead of using the camera battery when it is host to the smart media card. I delete the images and the explorer shows the files gone immediately. If I pull the smart media out of the reader then, I get some BS message about delayed write to drive failed. In reality, the images are still on the card. In other words, the computer shows the files gone but is still planning to get around to actually removing them from the card. If I leave the card in the reader long enough, the files do get removed. To use a unix phrase, the drives aren't imediately sync'd to outstanding instructions??!?!?

These "reports" really bother me, so I decided to do some checking on my own. My first call to a friend that owns a computer service bureau.

Her company "outsources" mis and technical staff to many of the studios here in Southern California... her staff now exceeds 250 that are on her payroll, but "have permanent positions".

Bottom line, XP is fine if the computer has been correctly confiured, which according to her, are not, new out of the box. She did say that Dell is one of the better companies in doing it right the first time.

BTW, swaping drives, and even changing a "major" componet like the graphics card is not an issue, if the person doing the job, has beeen trained, and knows all the ins and outs of XP (no re-registration necessary)

XP has been rock solid for me. The biggest problem I had was getting drivers for all my older hardware. Most was fine but could not get working XP drivers for my Sony photo printer or my STB TV card. Finally gave up on the TV card and replaced it with an ATI WinTV card and Sony finally released a driver for my printer so I no longer have to dual boot to 98 anymore. But stability much better then 98. I leave it on for days into weeks at a time and it is near that of my work win2k system which I have left on for months at a time.

When people ask me about windows XP for the home machine my advice generally is if you get a new pre configured computer then absolutely but if 98 runs fine on your current machine and you're happy with it then leave it alone.

BTW, for work stick with W2k! My boss wanted to be one of the first ones on the block so he put XP Professional on his machine and he has had a heck of a time trying to get his CAD software and FPGA simulation program to work correctly. These are very expensive software programs.

Speaking of tech support if any of you ever call tech support for eMachines (Oh I hope you'd never have to though) or USRobotics or a few other companies (I think Viewsonic but I'm not sure) it's all based out of a big call center right here in...they're not supolst to tell you so maybe I shouldn't...No I will, right here in Magna. Started out as Packard Bell (Ouch, 2 korean [Think Kia] computer makers mentioned in one post) tech support and grew from there...there now you'll sleep better at night

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by McGizmo:
I haven't followed all of the threads but assume that this hard drive is not in a working networkable computer? Otherwise the files could be moved over the network.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You have it right. It's in the seriously fu*cked computer I've been struggling with for the last year. I shouldn't have any problems with the master/slave bit - I've done a LOT of hard drive swapping over the years. As long as the Dell has a drive cable with TWO plugs on it (not just one like the Toshiba), I ought to be in great shape. I have to copy over several applications (those that aren't on the CD that Graham recently sent), all of my web material (HTML and thousands of pictures), hundreds of other pictures, some ROM images, my SID studio, AT&T info, internet bookmarks, and all of my e-mail (around a gig worth). Then I can yank the drive out and put it back in this computer and be done with it.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by McGizmo:
One ***** I have is that I use a USB card reader for download of camera generated images into the PC. I like to delete the images with explorer instead of using the camera battery when it is host to the smart media card. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, since I don't have a card reader, I shouldn't have this particular issue come up.

With the Nikon, I just download everything into the computer at once and then pick & choose from the folder they ended up in; and I delete the pictures off the card using the camera itself after disconnecting it.

The Olympus behaves differently: it shows up as a removable drive in Explorer, so I can pick and choose which photos I want without having to take them all. Or I can just Copy All and then paste into a folder on C: (such as when I've shot a bunch I know I'll keep). But I still use the camera's built-in OS to wipe the card clean after disconnecting it from the computer. Since I have AC adapters for both cameras, I don't need to worry about the batteries.

Anyway, it sounds like XP won't yack up Valentine's hearts all over the carpet when I install & then remove the HD from this machine as long as I set it up to be a non-booting slave drive. Everything else that's going to be connected to the XP system will be external, like cameras and spectrometers.

Craig, you shouldn't have any problems with WPA. it should only kick in if a lot of changes are made at once. and supposedly, there are hacks that can disable it if you know where to look.

btw, and this might have applied to Sasha's daughter's computer - do NOT run out and apply the MS security updates as soon as they come out (in fact - turn off auto-update mode! don't accept the default settings). Some have been know to seriously hose up the OS. check out this guy's web site/newsletters. he's been muckin' around w/ MS systems since the beginning and knows a sh*tload about them!

Scot Finnie