XP vs 2K -- Let the Windows Battle Begin!

[racketboy]

I don't know if it's my imagination or not, but I think my XP Pro box is suffering from something reminisent of Win9X rot. It's only been installed for about a year, but it's already showing signs of decay and slowdown.

My Win2K machines never seem to have that problem.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

That's probably because xp was the merging of the nt kernel and the normal kernel

I notice slowdown in xp even with how often I format (4 or 5 times a year).

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by MTXBlau@Sep 8, 2003 @ 10:55 PM

Once I tweak it...

I'm interested in knowing what tweaks you do.

I know all the standard stuff like turning off eye-candy and such, but would like to hear more

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

I remember reading a site about it once. That one of the first things you wanna do is specify that the pagefile be on a different physical hdd than the one your windows is on, and that you want to have it be the first thing on there. Also, you should defrag after every step you take after the install and installing crucial updates and whatnot, that way it's all togethor on the pc. I can't remember the rest of the advice, but there were some services it told you to disable because you'd never use them and it would help with cpu usage and mem usage and stuff.

 

[IBarracudaI]

Black Viper's This site has some winxp/2k tweaks

 

[racketboy]

well I've visited that site before

a little extreme

A lot of other techs have said to shy away from his tips

 

[mtxblau]

I actually leave about half of the eye candy on - because while it may speed up the system, part of the allure of XP is the eye candy.

I really haven't noticed the 98 rot syndrome - but at the same time, I haven't had issues with 98 rot for a while. I really think it's purely an IE issue - having uninstalled it (using just the free version of 98lite), it's been running solidly for over a year now. And, to confuse matters even more, I gave my sister a Thinkpad 365XD w/ Windows98 installed on it, with IE, and having received it two and a half years later, with no formats or adjustments, it still runs very well. Go figure.

Anyway, one of the noticeable tweaks is as mentioned prior, setting the pagefile to one size. That one in and of itself is an enormous boost. I haven't moved the pagefile to a separate drive (I've read it's a significant stability add-on, since it doesn't get fragmented with the rest of the drive).

Turning of hibernate/system restore/auto update also speeds up the system considerably. Not using IE and using Firebird or Netscape is also quite a help.

There's some others that can be found here:

http://www.pcaviator.com/articles/5_XP_tweaks.htm

I used them on a manufacturer's XP load and it helped quite a bit. After doing a fresh reformat, I just did those mentioned above, and I've been thoroughly enjoying the performance since.

All this is not to say win2k isn't as good - I did use Win2k on a machine for a year and half without reformating, and it got beat up significantly. The backwards compatability with 98 stuff is what makes XP stand out (in my mind). And 2K has the plus of being much future along in terms of security.

 

[gameboy900]

I figured I'd chime in and mention that XP has been nothing but great for me. I have yet to have a serious crash of the system (other then the few cause by my crappy tv tuner drivers, and there's nothing that xp can do about that). It runs like the wind even with ALL the eye candy turned on. It DOES NOT have any 9x bits in it other than a sort of half emulation mode when you specify a compatability mode. It's basically win2k with all the latest technologies and such in it. WinXP Pro is basically win2k with alot of new improvements. The damn thing boots in like 30 seconds (to the login screen), and then another 30 or so to load all the other stuff I have installed. While win2k would be just fine you would be basically preventing full compatability with newer stuff (like that Premiere issue). Also chances are with winxp the drivers will be updated more often (though most are win2k/xp drivers anyway).

As for the activation thing. If you plan on leaving the pc the way it is for long periods (years?) then I don't see the extra few minutes like a big deal.

As for the 98 rot issue. All OS' suffer from it eventually. Installing and uninstalling alot of stuff will always end up leaving crap behind in the registry and such.

 

[Curtis]

Id agree that XP is the way to go. Out of the box, it has far greater compatibility and features. You get nice enhancements to the NTFS file system (encryption, etc), System Restore (love it or hate it) can be a lifesaver (or at least a re-install/re-image saver) and it is still supported by MS (not that 2k isn't, but supprt will dry up sooner than for XP).

I've had one for two BSODs with XP - pretty scary stuff - but they weren't system fatal (system restore has saved me at least once). My laptop install did suffer from system rot and I recently had to re-image the drive, but I've installed and uninstalled huge amounts of crap - demos, dev applications, graphics programs, music tools, more demos - over the year it was running. I don't see any reason not to use XP over 2K unless HDD space is an issue for you. Expect to lose 1.5 to 2 gigs for an XP Pro/SP1 install.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

Last night I did most of the tweaks listed on that site (didn't have the bawls to do some of them), and now my pc is running MUCH nicer, and I'm using 120MB less pagefile ^_^.

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by Scared0o0Rabbit@Sep 9, 2003 @ 07:43 PM

Last night I did most of the tweaks listed on that site (didn't have the bawls to do some of them), and now my pc is running MUCH nicer, and I'm using 120MB less pagefile ^_^.

which page?

the "Top 5" one?

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

After doing most of the stuff in the services page for xp pro.

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by Scared0o0Rabbit@Sep 9, 2003 @ 07:43 PM

Last night I did most of the tweaks listed on that site (didn't have the bawls to do some of them), and now my pc is running MUCH nicer, and I'm using 120MB less pagefile ^_^.

how much swap file should I have?

I'm probably gonna put it on it's own partition.

I have 1GB of RAM if that makes any difference.

 

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

I use 1.5GB of swap space. No real point in putting it on it's own partition unless it's a different physical drive. If you set it at a static amount it doesn't spend precious time and resources trying to change the size around. You could probably get away with MUCH less swap space though... since you've got 2x the ram I do.

 

[racketboy]

Originally posted by Scared0o0Rabbit@Sep 9, 2003 @ 11:35 PM

I use 1.5GB of swap space. No real point in putting it on it's own partition unless it's a different physical drive. If you set it at a static amount it doesn't spend precious time and resources trying to change the size around. You could probably get away with MUCH less swap space though... since you've got 2x the ram I do.

well wouldn't it being on it's own partition keep it from being fragmented?

 

[mtxblau]

Originally posted by racketboy@Sep 9, 2003 @ 04:36 AM

well wouldn't it being on it's own partition keep it from being fragmented?

Yes.

how much swap file should I have? I'm probably gonna put it on it's own partition. I have 1GB of RAM if that makes any difference.

2GB should do it. I have 768MB of Ram, and my swap file is 1.4GB.

 

[Alexvrb]

You have a HT CPU, right? Use XP Pro. Win2k doesn't gain anything from HT, even though it will recognize it as being 2 processors, it knows nothing about hyperthreading, it just thinks there are 2 physical CPUs (which there isn't). I've even heard there's a slight performance drop in 2k when you enable HT.