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Print 107 comment(s) - last by Plazmid19.. on Mar 15 at 4:23 PM

A shift in how data is logically arranged on hard drives will go into effect next year, boosting Windows 7 performance, but hurting Windows XP.
Windows 7, Vista users will be fine, but by 2011 XP users will take a performance hit on new drives

Last month 65.5 percent of computers worldwide used Windows XP, approximately 16.5 percent used Windows Vista, and 9 percent used Windows 7.  Looking ahead to 2011, Windows XP is likely to give up some market share, especially with a number of corporate networks upgrading to Windows 7.  Still, Windows XP is likely to defy logic and cling to substantial marketshare next year.

And that brings about a thorny and underpublicized problem.  Windows Vista, Windows 7, along with OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and versions of the Linux kernel all support hard drives with a 4KB sectors.  Windows XP does not.

In 2011 all hard drive makers have agreed to abide by an agreement ironed out by the International Disk Drive Equipment and Materials Association (Idema), which will dispose of the older 512 byte block format and switch all drives to 4KB blocks.  

Does that mean the end of hard drives for Windows XP, currently the world's top operating system?  Not quite.  The Idema plan is gracious enough to call for the 4 KB (4096 byte segment) to be aligned with the past 512 byte segment.  So Windows XP users can still buy new drives and use them.  

That said, there's a major catch performance-wise.  In some cases what took a single operation on older drives will take two operations due to an emulation layer needed to allow Windows XP to treat the new drive format like the old one.  Overall, experts estimate users will take a 10 percent performance hit.

Windows XP is typically lauded for its performance and certainly was a marvel of operating system design by the time it hit SP3.  However, the hard drive switch should shift the performance balance in Windows 7's favor.  Using the larger block size, Windows 7 will feature eight times less wasted space and twice as many bits-per-block devoted to error correction.  Overall this shift will improve the speed and reliability of Windows 7, while reducing its power footprint.  Meanwhile Windows XP will hold steady in reliability, but will perform worse both in speed and power consumption.

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WD Green
By Etern205 on 3/10/2010 6:35:23 PM , Rating: 4
Bought one of them 1TB WD Green drives where WD dubbed it "Advanced Format". Install XP (out of curiosity) to see how long it would take it to finish without running the WD Align software.
The XP install never finishes as I kept on getting errors.
Ran the WD align and tried again and this time the XP install took less than 20 minutes.




RE: WD Green
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 7:55:28 PM , Rating: 1
I wanted to get some of those WD Green drives. Til I found out they suck on RAID.


RE: WD Green
By Cypherdude1 on 3/10/2010 10:40:37 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
I wanted to get some of those WD Green drives. Til I found out they suck on RAID.
WD Green drives are NOT intended for performance. They are meant to conserve energy and reduce heat. They accomplish this by reducing their spin rate below the standard 7200 RPM. If you want performance, you must buy the WD Black or Raptor drives.


RE: WD Green
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 11:05:14 PM , Rating: 4
I wasn't intending to use them performance. I wanted a lower power, low heat hdd for my home fileserver. My fileserver only supports 1 user. Performance is hardly even a consideration.

The problem comes in, due to the drives possibly not spinning up or up high enough, resulting in the controller thinking it's a dead drive.


RE: WD Green
By Sivar on 3/12/2010 1:07:46 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, they aren't good for RAID arrays.
But no, it isn't because the drive doesn't spin fast enough.

It's because the drives do not support TLER (Google it), which means that when an error (like a bad sector) does occur, the drive will be unresponsive for up to several minutes while it tries to recover and remap. RAID controllers do not approve of this behavior.
TLER, when enabled, tells the drive to try to recover from errors for only a very limited time period.


RE: WD Green
By meyerds on 3/12/2010 1:47:15 PM , Rating: 3
To be fair, there is a WD utility available online (obtainable directly through WD if you request it via e-mail) called WDTLER.EXE that can enable the WD Green series drives to work correctly in a RAID configuration (though outside of WD's intended use). See the associated wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLER for more information.

Using the TLER utility, along with another WD utility - WDIDLE3.EXE - I was able to successfully build a stable, quiet, and power-efficient 16TB RAID array with a Highpoint RocketRAID 3520 hardware RAID card.


RE: WD Green
By MGSsancho on 3/10/2010 11:11:31 PM , Rating: 2
RAID doesn't always equal performance. maybe he wants redundancy. the main reason these drives suck for raid is when a drive detects they spend too long trying to recover it. more expensive drives just pass the error along to the controller so the controller can deal with it.


RE: WD Green
By Solandri on 3/11/2010 1:47:15 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
WD Green drives are NOT intended for performance. They are meant to conserve energy and reduce heat. They accomplish this by reducing their spin rate below the standard 7200 RPM. If you want performance, you must buy the WD Black or Raptor drives.

AFAIK, none of the WD Green drives are variable RPM. Every review I've seen which tested throughput indicated they are 5400 RPM. Basically, the moniker is some marketer's way of describing a 5400 RPM drive in a way which uses the words "7200 RPM". By describing it as "5400-7200 RPM" they've (probably intentionally) created the misconception that the drives are variable speed when they are not.

For bulk storage that's doesn't require high performance, they are fine. But don't fall for the hype making it seem they are something special. They are basically just 5400 RPM drives.


RE: WD Green
By Sivar on 3/12/2010 1:10:38 AM , Rating: 2
I suspect the original poster didn't mean that the drive literally reduces its speed from an original 7200, just that it spins at a reduced speed.
Either way you are right, there were a lot of misconceptions about the drives early on. The speed is not variable. WD Green's spin at 5400, Seagate LP's spin at 5900.


RE: WD Green
By createcoms on 3/11/2010 12:19:31 AM , Rating: 3
I have three of them running RAID 5 on a RocketRAID 3520 controller. They are running awesome - good performance (given the specs of the individual drives) and low power, I get all I want in a R5 array.


RE: WD Green
By afkrotch on 3/11/2010 1:01:30 AM , Rating: 2
I'm using RAID 5 on a 3ware 9500S-12 (upgraded to 512mb, original 64mb broke and only had the 512 laying around), with some 1.5TB Seagate drives. Those are working fine, so whatever.


RE: WD Green
By Hannibal256 on 3/12/2010 3:53:04 PM , Rating: 2
Not meant for RAID.


RE: WD Green
By Alexvrb on 3/15/2010 1:06:18 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah, the web is flooded with articles crying doom for WinXP, over this. All you have to do is run drive alignment software, such as WD align.


Windows XP sucks
By tviceman on 3/10/2010 6:39:58 PM , Rating: 5
Compared to MS-Dos 6.22. That was the peak of operating systems right there. No mouse, no graphics, no bsod's, just me, config.sys, autoexec.bat, and the black screen.




RE: Windows XP sucks
By RU482 on 3/10/2010 6:54:46 PM , Rating: 5
ah-hem....AND ASCII pr0n


RE: Windows XP sucks
By Rankor on 3/10/2010 7:30:28 PM , Rating: 5
I remember tinkering with those files just enough to get enough conventional memory to run a good majority of my DOS games back then. Then QEMM386 came into the picture w/c made it a little easier.

I remember using Magellan for organizing files and MUDDing on a 14.4 modem. It took 8 hours to download a 4 meg .mov file, if someone didn't pick up the landline phone.

Good times, good times.


RE: Windows XP sucks
By borismkv on 3/10/2010 9:46:08 PM , Rating: 2
Ah...Quarterdeck. And the golden age of Sierra Games. And BBSes. I miss those days.


RE: Windows XP sucks
By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:42:11 PM , Rating: 2
Pfft, 14.4 is not even old! try 300 baud lol! Sarcasm aside, those were definitely fun times for me as well. I had much more involvement *ahem* then :)


RE: Windows XP sucks
By nilepez on 3/10/2010 10:35:35 PM , Rating: 1
6.22? What did 6.22 bring to the table that 5.0 didn't already provide? As I recall, the main difference was it had HD compression.

Dos was nice for what it was, but I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the DOS days. Hell, I don't want to go back to the XP days, though I have to at 8:00 AM M-F.


no one with winXP in the 2011 will upgrade their hd
By Murloc on 3/11/10, Rating: 0
By probedb on 3/11/2010 8:06:28 AM , Rating: 2
Really? Until last year I was using XP and I upgrade reasonably often, particularly to larger hard drives.


By StraightCashHomey on 3/11/2010 8:56:11 AM , Rating: 3
You're obviously not a network administrator, nor do you work in an IT field.


By Drag0nFire on 3/11/2010 11:17:38 AM , Rating: 2
I don't know. Even if I don't upgrade an XP machine, my I was hoping to get a long life out of my Windows Home Server by adding storage over time. As near I can tell, the advanced format isn't supported by WHS.


By Suntan on 3/11/2010 1:18:34 PM , Rating: 3
Ah, dumb and naive. What a potent one-two punch.

I have a PC that currently runs XP and does its task just fine. It is my HTPC and it is responsible for recording/ripping/playing and serving TV and blu rays throughout the house.

I have no intention of updating or replacing it with Win 7 as it does its job just fine with XP, however I do update or add HDDs from time to time if I need more storage.

Try not to fall into the trap of thinking that your usage patterns are the only ones that matter…

-Suntan


By Lazarus Dark on 3/11/2010 7:13:57 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed. I'm still running XP for my htpc. And it works fine. In fact, it took so many years to get it stable, why the crap would I switch now? In fact, I could probably keep running it for years. Since most of it's job is playing media, and it currently does that superbly, changing the OS would just be unnecessary headache and expense. Sometimes, if it aint broke, dont fix it.

I do however plan to get a netbook this year and expect to use Win7 on it as I'm sure thats what it will come with.


By JediJeb on 3/12/2010 5:06:22 PM , Rating: 2
lol I just upgraded my home computer last year from Win2K to Winxp because I had a drive die and couldn't find my Win2K disk, otherwise I would still be running Win2K.

At work we still have computers running Win95 and WinNT4 because to replace them we would need to spend about $100k each to also replace the equipment they are attached to since the manufacturer hasn't written newer software for the equipment or as a couple of them are interfaced with an interface card that requires and ISA slot on the motherboard. We will run them until the equipment dies I guess or until the computers die. What I fear is having to spend $100k just because a computer needs to be replaced.


Finally
By rbfowler9lfc on 3/10/2010 10:08:06 PM , Rating: 4
Be gone, XP. Technology moves on.




RE: Finally
By afkrotch on 3/10/10, Rating: 0
RE: Finally
By Etern205 on 3/11/2010 11:47:10 AM , Rating: 2
It's those that move backwards have to make everyone suffer.
Windows 7 still has legacy drivers because of those people.

If MS took them all out, I'll bet the size of Win7 will be on a CD not a DVD!


RE: Finally
By Sivar on 3/12/2010 1:13:43 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, you are right. Look up vLite and you can do this yourself.


RE: Finally
By Chocobollz on 3/15/2010 4:02:13 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
It's those that move backwards have to make everyone suffer.

I'd say not really. There's an old saying, that to make a jump, sometimes you have to take few steps backward. Take a step backward and then leap forward. Though I'm not really sure if there's really an old saying like that :P~


Partition alignment
By frumpsnake on 3/10/2010 6:54:49 PM , Rating: 5
Being exactly eight times the size, 4096-byte sectors align perfectly with 512-byte sectors. What appears to be 8 separate sectors is actually 1 on the physical hard disk.

The actual problem is that XP starts partitions on block 63. To be aligned perfectly with the 4K sectors, it has to be divisible by 8. It's one 512 byte block short, meaning to read one sector you can end up reading two sectors.

Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows Vista and above align partitions differently and don't suffer issues.

To combat the problem, western Digital offer two options. A simple jumper causes the hard drive to read all block requests as +1, meaning instead of XP starting on block 63 it starts on 64. This works fine with single partitions. Otherwise, a third party partitioning tool is required to align the blocks correctly. There is nothing inherently stopping Microsoft from changing XP's disk management tool from changing partition offsets if they absolutely had to, or using any number of third party tools. Western Digital provide one "wdalign" for this purpose.

Eventually, the 4096-byte-sectors-appearing-as-512-byte-sectors "emulation layer" will disappear entirely. This *doesnt* have to take place by 2011, and anyone aligning the sectors properly won't have an issue on XP anyway, until 4K sectors are exposed to the operating system.

This topic was covered much more thoroughly and correctly by Anandtech back in December:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=36...




RE: Partition alignment
By Plazmid19 on 3/15/2010 4:23:48 PM , Rating: 2
Very good reference frumpsnake! This article is a very good read. This is basically Jumbo frames for hard drives. It will be interesting to see how controller manufacturers like Intel, JMicron, AMD, LSI, and others implement 4KB block handling at the controller level.

-Plazmid


Yes or no....
By CyborgTMT on 3/10/2010 6:32:13 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
by 2011 XP users won't be able to find compatible new hard drives

quote:
So Windows XP users can still buy new drives and use them.


Huh?




RE: Yes or no....
By Smilin on 3/11/2010 1:24:03 PM , Rating: 2
RTFA.


How convenient of them...
By shareky on 3/10/10, Rating: 0
RE: How convenient of them...
By someguy123 on 3/10/10, Rating: 0
RE: How convenient of them...
By Davelo on 3/11/2010 11:25:34 AM , Rating: 3
The only thing faster about it is that it puts money into MS pockets faster.


RE: How convenient of them...
By Ticholo on 3/11/2010 5:35:12 AM , Rating: 3
I think it all comes down to MS's willingness to update XP for the new standard.
I will not be expecting them to do so, but since 65% of the market is rather a lot, I can see that happening.

Unless said update/patch isn't actually possible, that is, though I doubt it.


By sdsdv10 on 3/10/2010 6:33:15 PM , Rating: 4
Jeeze Jason, talk about fear mongering. There is no need for XP users to fear. Check out this nice article about advanced format.
http://hothardware.com/Articles/WDs-1TB-Caviar-Gre...
quote:

The good news is, Western Digital has already solved the problem. Those of you who want to use an AF drive in Windows XP can either install a hardware jumper (if you plan to use a single, simple partition) or run a software tool called WDAlign. Either solution will restore the drive's full write performance, but WDAlign is what you'll need to use if you've created multiple partitions on a single disk.


Also;
quote:
Jason wrote:
Using the larger block size, Windows 7 will feature eight times less wasted space and twice as many bits-per-block devoted to error correction.


This is not "exactly" correct. While advanced format replaces 8 ECC regions with just one, that one ECC is larger than the 8 previous one. It still comes out as a net gain, but not 8 times...




SSDs not affected I presume
By DukeN on 3/11/2010 9:31:14 AM , Rating: 2
I think a good SSD with even a 10% hit in XP would be light years better than a standard drive.

Assuming of course the logical data arrangement being talked about here applies to all hard drives, not just rotational ones.




where's the problem?
By zodiacfml on 3/11/2010 10:18:29 AM , Rating: 2
around 10% performance hit? ouch??




How is this a problem?
By CZroe on 3/12/2010 1:58:44 AM , Rating: 2
How is this a problem? If someone needs to replace a hard disk drive on an XP system, the replacement will likely be more than 10% faster (the drives today likely are) and, by that time, there should be competitively priced and sized SSDs to the same capacity HDDs originally in thier XP systems.

Basically, replacement HDDs = future HDDs; future HDDs = faster HDDs; 10% slower on a >10% faster HDD is still a gain. All that notwithstanding, buying an SSD of similar capacity to what it is replacing, by that point, will be at least as cheap as buying a similar HDD today.




By macthemechanic on 3/14/2010 11:39:16 AM , Rating: 2
Dumping the old hardware and I'll move it all to Macs, with XP running in Parallels.

Bye, bye old hardware.




O/S is not the only consideration
By Plazmid19 on 3/15/2010 4:16:26 PM , Rating: 2
One thing that seems to have escaped review here is that the HD and the O/S are not the only parts of this puzzle. Idema only included the HD manufacturers in their review process. I noticed that Intel, JMicron, LSI, and other controller manufacturers were not part of the process. This is important because the controller plays a major role. Most, if not all, controllers are optimized for the 512B block. In order to truly realize the benefits of a 4KB block, the support has to be there end-to-end. You will need a new controller or MB w/ 4K capable controller to do this. Its not just the O/S. This is going to be very interesting, if it happens at all in the time frame given. Currently Idema has set the implementation time for 2011. I'm thinking this will be more like 2015 or later, since most of the SATA and SCSI infrastructure must be rewritten and tested to make sure it works. It will also take new T10 and T13 spec rewrites. Its not like the transfer rate changes of ATA to SATA 1.5 to 3. This is possibly a major re-plumbing of the ATA system. A system that has been in place for at least 25 years, if not longer.




N...N.....N.....
By FaceMaster on 3/10/2010 8:50:02 PM , Rating: 1
...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO




Not an Issue
By largenfirm on 3/10/10, Rating: -1
RE: Not an Issue
By ksherman on 3/10/2010 6:31:16 PM , Rating: 5
Congratulations?


RE: Not an Issue
By sdsdv10 on 3/10/2010 6:38:07 PM , Rating: 2
I believe you ment to write,

"Not an issue for me "

What percentage of users, here at Dailytech or even Anandtech, are running VM's?


RE: Not an Issue
By karielash on 3/10/2010 7:39:11 PM , Rating: 1

I use VMWare Workstation for a lot of things (with the exception of gaming) Most people I know (and yeah the majority are techies) also use VMWare (or equivalent) for day to day work. Disposable Hosts are nice, particularly for development or research work.


RE: Not an Issue
By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:37:53 PM , Rating: 2
We use it here quite often for testing, development in one of my case for application support lol! That latter is my fault for upgrading all my machines to Windows 7 hahahaha But VM works just find and dandy for just that 1 app :P


RE: Not an Issue
By PrezWeezy on 3/10/2010 8:01:58 PM , Rating: 2
I have about 10 VMs loaded up on my desktop...but I don't use a single one of them for actual production. I use them for testing, or when a customer calls and says "I'm having this problem on my 2000 machine" I can boot up my 2000 image and tell them exactly how to fix it.

I've only seen a very small increase in performance running virtualy, and only if you are NOT using a full blown host OS.


how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By shin0bi272 on 3/10/10, Rating: -1
RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By bug77 on 3/10/10, Rating: 0
RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By Oregonian2 on 3/10/2010 7:21:37 PM , Rating: 4
I certainly don't upgrade often. If I'm going through the trouble of hardware upgrades (as in CPU/motherboard) I want substantial throughput enhancement (30% is NOT substantial).

Still using XP and an Intel Conroe processor. My current drives are pretty old too (750Gb ones). So far, just fine (and drives not full yet).


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By redbone75 on 3/10/10, Rating: -1
RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 9:36:49 PM , Rating: 2
There's been times I've upgraded to gain a 0% increase in performance. The new board/cpu/gpu/etc simply had a feature that I wanted.


By Spuke on 3/11/2010 12:04:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The new board/cpu/gpu/etc simply had a feature that I wanted.
It's been a while since I've upgraded solely based on performance. New features is my main reason. I recently bought a E8200 simply because I wanted VT support. My previous OC'd E7200 worked just fine.

But I have to admit the encoding performance on those i5's and i7's are awesome.


By uibo on 3/11/2010 7:33:14 AM , Rating: 2
For me 15% is nothing. I could not be bothered to build a new system to gain only 15%.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By Etern205 on 3/11/2010 11:39:41 AM , Rating: 2
I don't either and only have to when it's necessary. My Xeon quad (Yorkfield) still works great and why bother doing so to get a Core i7 just to "be with the crowd"? That is just plain stupid.

Now does this mean I don't upgrade at all?
Nope, just got myself a WD Green Drive and a
Asus U3S6 USB 3.0/SATA 6Gb/s card, will I ever use the USB 3.0 ports? Not likely, but at least I'm prepared for what ever the industry throws at.


By Silver2k7 on 3/15/2010 6:02:34 AM , Rating: 2
get a USB3 docking station or 2.. its nice when you need to move around files :)


By BurnItDwn on 3/11/2010 6:46:15 PM , Rating: 2
I'd disagree and say 30% is pretty substantial, but generally not substantial enough to warrant an upgrade ...

I usually go through the trouble of an upgrade when either
1.) my GPU is too slow, and I need to lower settings to play the games I like .. so I buy a new GPU
2.) my CPU is too slow, as some new piece of software is very CPU dependant and doesn't run very well

And then, I only buy what I need ...
Replaced my 939 system with a cheap am2+ and a cheapy and heavily discounted Phenom.
Didn't like the phenom performance so after one of the higher end phenom 2's dropped to a certain price point, I picked one of those up and got rid of the 1st gen phenom (for a massive performance increase .. hehehe)
Found somebody looking for a 4850, and my 4850 wasn't quite cutting it at 1920x1200 with everything, so I bought a 4870 and sold the 4850 .... etc ...

That said ... I generally am about a year or two behind the high end, and tend to upgrade every year or two ...

I like to have 1 "fashish" computer, and 1 "decentish" machine as a backup, or for "instant lan parties" ....


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 7:53:28 PM , Rating: 1
Wow, what a dumb statement. I upgrade almost every year and my fileserver is sitting at 7 TB with 4 TB external backup. I'm on the verge of having to upgrade my storage again.

I'm still sitting on Win2k, WinXP, and one machine is on Win7. Man, I dislike Win7. Feels like it's built for stupid users and not the IT professional.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By leexgx on 3/10/2010 7:58:32 PM , Rating: 2
main reason to upgrade is for the security side of things (UAC) and DX10/11

you can always make it look like windows 2000 (why they never had classic mode for vista and win7 you would of thought classic mode be XP layout not windows 2000) does windows 7 have classic mode?


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By leexgx on 3/10/2010 8:06:22 PM , Rating: 2
ok it does not

+ i am going to block the gay *intellitxt.com* (hint for others) ads as they are very annoying, other ads on the site will be alowed


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By LordanSS on 3/11/2010 1:47:15 AM , Rating: 2
Adblock Plus is your friend....

...I haven't seen any ads in this website for a while now. =)


By PrinceGaz on 3/11/2010 12:03:08 PM , Rating: 1
And if everyone follows your advice and blocks all ads on this website, you won't see this website for much longer either because it will go bust.

I do however block intellitxt.com like the previous poster though (I hate those mouseover ads) but all other ads I do allow.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 8:21:58 PM , Rating: 4
Vista/Win7. Doesn't let me undock my toolbar from the taskbar, to place it on the right side of my screen. I turn off UAC, so I don't care about that. Win7 doesn't give me a classic start menu, either.

DX10 brings nothing real amazing to gaming, except slowdown. DX11 is barely on the market and god knows when it'll actually start really taking off. Will we even get to fully use it, when majority of PC games nowadays are ports from consoles?

As of right now, I see absolutely zero point to leave WinXP.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By OCedHrt on 3/10/2010 8:34:50 PM , Rating: 2
I can undock my taskbar to any side of the screen just fine in Win7. You're not doing it right. Before moving it, you have to right click on it and uncheck "Lock the taskbar." This is the same as in XP.

And for classic start menu, if you google Windows 7 classic start menu there are more than enough solutions.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 8:50:43 PM , Rating: 1
No you can't. I'm not moving the taskbar , I'm moving the toolbar .

Right-click taskbar, go to toolbars, make a toolbar. Now unlock the taskbar and try to move that toolbar. It doesn't undock, like it does in Win2k or WinXP.

For classic start menu, I can just not install an additional software program and just continue using WinXP. Hell, I'd still be on Win2k, if it weren't for the fact that some games simply wouldn't install on Win2k.


By omnicronx on 3/11/2010 12:03:28 AM , Rating: 3
get off my porch!!!


By HrilL on 3/11/2010 11:52:44 AM , Rating: 2
Some of us like the idea of having a more secure OS. Maybe it is time to get used to a little change. I mean I wasn't the biggest fan switching to XP when It came out and I wasn't the biggest fan of windows 7 either. Now I think it is a lot better. You an do more. Alt tab is improved you can windows key and hit the arrows to move windows from one screen to the other without using the mouse.

You do realize that win2k is a real security risk? I wouldn't trust my file server running on that now days. Even if you've got it locked down.

I remember back in the day with win2k running IIS5 and you could send it a URL and get the contents of the C: drive...


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 10:48:40 PM , Rating: 1
Yes I did participate in it and yes I did voice my concerns. No they did not do jack about it.

I also see no reason to upgrade to Windows 7 right now. I'm not getting better performance on my other machine with it. I'm not using games that make use of DX10/DX11.


By bhieb on 3/11/2010 9:37:13 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
Yes I did participate in it and yes I did voice my concerns. No they did not do jack about it.


Seems like your concerns were not addressed because you were in the minority. Most of what you complain about are throwbacks to the "old" way (arguably all the way back to 2000), and seems you may be resistant to change.

As and IT guy myself I originally I found 7 to be annoying as well. It was not really 7's fault though as it was my comfort with XP, and ignorance of the new way. Should it have an XP mode? I don't really see why not, but I don't chastise it too much. Think of it this way if you have some custom "classic" style, how will you support users that see a different setup. I like my setup to be as close to my end user as possible. Does it suck to learn a new windows, sure, but to say it should look the same is pretty asinine when MS was clearly trying to distance itself from XP (otherwise why by the new one).

One thing I've found extremely useful is the search bar. It is almost instant, and very powerful. The first experience I had was with a laptop, I wanted to change the power settings. Me being a 7 noob like yourself, trying to dig through control panel was way too trying. However I click start and type pow then there it is power settings.

Question then becomes do I really need to know where everything is deep in the control panel (so I can click navigate), if the search is that responsive? It has taken a shift in the way I look for things, but honestly I think it is easier (it took us years to learn where everything was in XP now it is a click and a few keys away). The downside is that I'll probably never know where to find these in cpanel.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By munky on 3/11/2010 12:10:31 AM , Rating: 1
How about the fact that I'm not gonna shell out a few hundred dollars to fix something that's not broken, and works just fine with my not-so-outdated Core i7.


By JediJeb on 3/12/2010 5:24:42 PM , Rating: 3
Exactly, if I could upgrade to W7 for say $10 I would, but since I don't even have $10 to spare right now I would have to wait anyhow. I am definitely not spending $100+ to upgrade when what I have is working just fine. Heck Win3.11 did all I need it to do. If I could get the one game I play to run on Linux, I would never spend another dime on an OS.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By LordanSS on 3/11/2010 1:54:56 AM , Rating: 2
I have dual boot on my machine... WinXP and Win7. Depending on what I plan on running after powering up my machine, I load one or the other.

Many games, mostly the older ones (although some that are only 2ish years old can be added to that list) do not play well, or are stable enough, on Win7. It's sad, but true.

That being said... when I am playing Dirt2, on Win7 of course, it does look amazing. =)

...too bad it's the only DX11 title I have, too. =/


By StevoLincolnite on 3/11/2010 3:31:17 AM , Rating: 1
I've found that Pre-Windows XP games actually run better on Windows 7 than what they do on Windows XP, depends on the game I guess.


By StraightCashHomey on 3/11/2010 8:51:02 AM , Rating: 2
RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By Dorkyman on 3/11/2010 10:34:05 AM , Rating: 2
Hey, I'm with you on the value of XP. Still, I just read last week about a freeware program that builds a classic start menu in 7, and a second utility that kills the current start button. Net effect is exactly the same as XP.

Sorry I can't recall the names of the programs, but Google should be able to easily find them, or programs like them.


By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:25:34 PM , Rating: 2
Fck, my head hurts. Why do people even consider this is obviously beyond my understanding or my common sense. Then again I see kids turning their vehicles into something that isn't...like a rally car :/


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By aharris on 3/11/2010 3:32:54 AM , Rating: 2
And for Snap (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Arrang... I have a hard time using an OS with poor multi-window management after using Snap for a while now.

XP just feels dated now. It definitely had its time to shine and was a huge leap in consumer OS stability, but I think it's time we stop living in the past and accept the usability advancements Win7 has brought to the OS realm.


By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:28:26 PM , Rating: 2
I don't know. Sometimes I get nostalgic and don't mind trying to hack into others PC :) J/K of course, maybe. Not that Win7 is any better but a unsupported OS is definitely more fun to mess with.

For example, grab the media's off Suntan's XP machine ^_-y and provide them to the feds for investigation for legality issues :D


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By Etern205 on 3/11/2010 12:08:35 PM , Rating: 1
95-98SE/NT 4.0 are for IT professional as they let you adjust resources where any OS above 2K won't.
I still remember a long time ago where I have to set jumpers on a ISA modem to avoid conflicts or adjust the resources in the bios in order to get a ISA sound card to work.

These days with new OS, IT pros learn crap since most of the stuffs are automated.

btw, sound cards uses IRQ 5 if your wondering and
ISA modems are mostly set to COM2 which is also used for the serial port.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By B3an on 3/11/2010 2:04:39 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah actually having stuff just work, and not having to mess around for hours is such a bad thing isn't it.
I mean, it's not like some of us have real work to do on the computer or anything.

I seriously hate people that stick to old OS's. You're all so anti-change and backwards. Even if vast improvements have been made you will not accept them and even go as far as to say they are bad things, as above. Ridiculous.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:33:22 PM , Rating: 2
I don't think that's what he implied. What's implied is that some users do things at the higher level and have hardly any clue why or how it works.

For example, I get crap for IT admins all the time. Usually, the conversation ends like this, "...I can not only tell you how it works, I can design it, program it and implement it for you if it's too difficult to understand." One of the benefits of being an engineer :) Not all IT admins mind you, but just those that "act" like they know it all but actually don't have the slightest clue lol.


By Etern205 on 3/12/2010 11:23:18 PM , Rating: 2
What I mean was those OS lets you learn a thing or two on PC troubleshooting.

Had to work on a notebook once and immediately after install just XP w/SP3, there was a conflict with the internal card reader and serial port. Double clicking on the card reader indicates there was not enough resource and free up the resource will solve the problem. Well for XP it would be great that I can do that, but instead I can't as the memory resources are grey out, but for the OS mentioned in my previous post, it lets you adjust each memory resource manually letting you select the that free-up.

Another way is to disable the serial port in the bios, too bad notebook bios are limited and the funny thing is there is no serial port on the notebook itself, just the bios POST saying it exist (even updating the bios to the latest revision).

Now if you see new IT guys that start with XP, asking them about resources/IRQ as to how they fix it and they look at you with 3 heads. And while automated is a great idea, it just looses the "fun" in PC troubleshooting. :)


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By mathew7 on 3/11/2010 2:13:00 AM , Rating: 2
What about HDD failures? I have some 5-year-old systems at my father's company, all with XP. So what should I do when one drive fails in 2 years? Rely on old (2nd hand) HDDs, or new ones? And no, I will not changes the Windows version, because it still works and the apps are old with no suport for Vista/7.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By Bruneauinfo on 3/11/2010 7:43:29 AM , Rating: 5
go back to pencil and paper?


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By Etern205 on 3/11/2010 12:22:44 PM , Rating: 1
In the modern days we use something call a printer.


RE: how often do people upgrade their hardware?
By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:35:11 PM , Rating: 3
I don't know about you but I can't find any dot matrix printer anymore. I think it's due time we go back to pencil and paper :)


By Etern205 on 3/12/2010 4:35:00 PM , Rating: 2
I don't know about you but I can't fine any pencil and paper anymore. I think it's due time we go back to chisel and rocks. :P


By blueeyesm on 3/11/2010 8:55:24 AM , Rating: 2
Apps that no longer work in Vista/7 will require 7 Pro. It has XP virtualization for those apps that are no longer updated.

From the sounds of things, you may want to start your upgrade path planning now to replace those systems in two years. This time line should also allow for a budget to train staff on the new look and feel (although I have been able to tweak 7 to look almost like Win2k, right down to the desktop icons).


random question
By Mikescool on 3/10/10, Rating: -1
RE: random question
By Etern205 on 3/10/2010 6:39:05 PM , Rating: 2
You click on the
"Worth Reading" rate up
"Not Worth Reading" rate down


RE: random question
By Mikescool on 3/10/10, Rating: 0
RE: random question
By Mikescool on 3/10/10, Rating: 0
RE: random question
By Zshazz on 3/10/2010 6:56:47 PM , Rating: 2
If you're looking for "worth reading" in a place you've posted a comment, you won't find it.

When you post, you're no longer allowed to up/down rate posts for that topic.


RE: random question
By SlickRoenick on 3/11/2010 10:17:26 AM , Rating: 2
I have never seen the Worth Reading option and i rarely ever post. I thought i needed a certain number of posts before that option shows up?


RE: random question
By Lanister on 3/11/2010 1:15:55 PM , Rating: 2
I do not have a Worth Reading option either. I tried finding a FAQ or something a while ago to find the rules but was not successful. I was just waiting to see if one day I logged on and the option was available, kind of like playing the lottery hehe


RE: random question
By mikeyD95125 on 3/10/2010 11:00:21 PM , Rating: 1
Hey! My name is Mike too! I guess we are both pretty cool.

Quick question:

How come I never get a 6 on my posts? I can't figure it out.


RE: random question
By afkrotch on 3/10/2010 11:19:45 PM , Rating: 2
A mod or something thinks it's worthy and sets it as such. At least, I think that's how it goes.


RE: random question
By just4U on 3/11/2010 3:55:53 AM , Rating: 2
Moderators give out the 6. Most of the time it's because you've enhanced the overall article with new information that wasn't originally there. Every other blue moon someone also gets rated up for a post that other's find humourous or witty but that's even rarer still.


RE: random question
By The0ne on 3/11/2010 2:40:00 PM , Rating: 1
I vote that anyone that provides grammar/spelling/correct info should get the 6. That way, we all will be 6 in every single Jason Mick blog! Yay!


RE: random question
By just4U on 3/12/2010 1:21:42 AM , Rating: 2
GAH hell no, I am a notoriously bad speller myself. While I don't mind being corrected on occasion, having the spelling police on duty looking for "6" 24/7 would drive me crazy...

...afterall they wouldn't just target poor Jason but all of us!


RE: random question
By B3an on 3/12/2010 4:39:58 AM , Rating: 2
You two mikes are not very bright.


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