binky
Flashlight Enthusiast
Every time I go back to using my Windows OS (Win2000) I'm frustrated by a bunch of things, but I think if I could solve this one particular annoyance it'd make the experience sorta tolerable...
When booting up, when starting up applications, or when doing just about anything, I am forced as a user to monitor my hard drive light and wait for it to stop blinking. Sometimes it'll stop for a few seconds, I'll be just reaching for keyboard, then it'll start up again. (this is aside from the usual background indexing and defragging stuff, which is at low priority) That's the only way I can determine that the OS or application is finally actually ready for me to use it. If I violate that and don't wait for the drive's intermittent scratching to stop, then bad things happen like drivers don't ever load or software crashes.
It's a series of "wait... okay I think it's done, nope, hourglass... okay maybe now... nope hard drive's scrunching again... okay finally!"
In stark contrast, I don't find that to be the case in MacOS or Linux. When the desktop comes up, or a window for an application, it's ready for use. When a dialog box asks you for your password, you may safely enter it at that moment without needing to wait to see if the cursor might in another moment hyperspace off to set focus somewhere else, or might turn into an hourglass just in the middle of your keystrokes. It's the little things like this that make the other OS's such a better experience.
Is there some utility software that's out there that'll tell me "OS loading complete" so I don't need to wait any longer than necessary? Or that might even tell me when applications are done loading too? I know I can bring up Task Manager sometimes and watch the processor monitor, but that's not the level of convenience I'm after. I want push-info, not pull-info, if you catch my drift.
Any hints/ideas? Help please!
BTW, I have to use Win2K for some things, such as for AutoCad which only runs under Windows, and for watching lecture videos with RealPlayer. I refuse to install & let Real barf its files and AOL ads etc all over my clean Linux install, which absolutely never crashes. It took me a long time to sweep up the mess it splattered around my Windows OS & registry, including junk I told the installer not to load and trying to steal ownership of file types.
When booting up, when starting up applications, or when doing just about anything, I am forced as a user to monitor my hard drive light and wait for it to stop blinking. Sometimes it'll stop for a few seconds, I'll be just reaching for keyboard, then it'll start up again. (this is aside from the usual background indexing and defragging stuff, which is at low priority) That's the only way I can determine that the OS or application is finally actually ready for me to use it. If I violate that and don't wait for the drive's intermittent scratching to stop, then bad things happen like drivers don't ever load or software crashes.
It's a series of "wait... okay I think it's done, nope, hourglass... okay maybe now... nope hard drive's scrunching again... okay finally!"
In stark contrast, I don't find that to be the case in MacOS or Linux. When the desktop comes up, or a window for an application, it's ready for use. When a dialog box asks you for your password, you may safely enter it at that moment without needing to wait to see if the cursor might in another moment hyperspace off to set focus somewhere else, or might turn into an hourglass just in the middle of your keystrokes. It's the little things like this that make the other OS's such a better experience.
Is there some utility software that's out there that'll tell me "OS loading complete" so I don't need to wait any longer than necessary? Or that might even tell me when applications are done loading too? I know I can bring up Task Manager sometimes and watch the processor monitor, but that's not the level of convenience I'm after. I want push-info, not pull-info, if you catch my drift.
Any hints/ideas? Help please!
BTW, I have to use Win2K for some things, such as for AutoCad which only runs under Windows, and for watching lecture videos with RealPlayer. I refuse to install & let Real barf its files and AOL ads etc all over my clean Linux install, which absolutely never crashes. It took me a long time to sweep up the mess it splattered around my Windows OS & registry, including junk I told the installer not to load and trying to steal ownership of file types.