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XP = shit

vbt - May 9, 2009

		vbt		May 9, 2009
			during last days I started to get malware coming to system32, they were quite hard to remove. Then I tried to apply some seurity patch, then pc return in loop to login screen. I removed patched in safe mode, the pc worked well again but USB storage was no more working(no letter assigned, media unreadable). I finally decided to install SP2 (was using SP1a). Ther was not problem to install the service pack. I reboot and got "fastfat.sys demaged" ... I restore it with the repair mode but then no login screen, tried many things(found similar problems on forums) with no success. I reinstalled XP in new folder on same partition, all hard drive letter has changed... I used Device Manager to reassign letter, first try worked perfectly, I tried on two other partitions and after assigning letter, there was no more letter assigned with "free space". All my dev partition and tools/data partition removed!!! with no data saved before, everything lost. I finally hacked a partition tool to restore partition info and everything is back, I reused the device manager to assign letter and it finally worked. So SP2 is "evil" and the device manager is not a really stable tool.

		Kuta		May 11, 2009
			Sounds like you have been having a bit of a horror run with Windows. I've certainly havn't had that kind of trouble before. The first thing you should get out of this is always backup your important data. I usaully burn a DVD of all my valued stuff about once every 1 or 2 months and I've actually had to make use of those backups on several occasions. The next most important thing is to have good virus and internet security software installed. And then make sure it is always up to date. What I would suggest you do now is make a backup everything you want to keep and then just reformat the hard drive and start over again. There's no way that XP should be that unstable. And do you realise that the latest Service Pack is SP3? You also want to make sure your using the latest version of Internet Explorer which is version 8 which has some security features built into it. Try all that and then let us know how it goes.

		ExCyber		May 11, 2009
			Kuta said: good virus and internet security software Let me know when you find some. I've heard that NOD32 is decent for antivirus, but I have yet to find a Windows firewall that's actually good; every one I've tried sucks up a measurable bit of CPU even when the network is idle, pegs CPU use at 100% seemingly at random, has a really obnoxious interface, and/or fails to provide a useful degree of control over outgoing connections.

		Amon		May 11, 2009
			I use AVG the free version on all my computers though (no linkscanner) I hear avast is better. Malwarebytes for everything else. Xp maybe be shit but it is better than the alternative Vista. On my new laptop it came with XP pro SP2. I installed SP3 it failed and on reboot bluescreen. Windows would no longer boot. Had to go into the recovery console run chkdsk and fixmbr and all was well. I ended up just reformatting. Generally its best to reformat once a year to keep windows running well.

		Zziggy00		May 12, 2009
			I'll 2nd some of the things Amon said. I use AVG Free edition for my antivirus, Malwarebytes and SpyBot for spyware, malware, etc... Always get security updates... I get a major virus about once a year... never fun.

		Runik		May 14, 2009
			ExCyber said: Let me know when you find some. I've heard that NOD32 is decent for antivirus, but I have yet to find a Windows firewall that's actually good; every one I've tried sucks up a measurable bit of CPU even when the network is idle, pegs CPU use at 100% seemingly at random, has a really obnoxious interface, and/or fails to provide a useful degree of control over outgoing connections. You should give a try to looknstop : small & very powerful Edit: coupled with nod32, it's th3 win

		Amon		May 17, 2009
			I keep getting DOS attacked/ EPMAP attacked. It could be a virus or something idk. I've run every scan I could think of but I need a firewall program. Windows Firewall for the moment seems to stop it. Any suggestions?

		vbt		Jun 1, 2009
			SP2 installed successfully, any risk to install SP3 ?

		Kuta		Jun 2, 2009
			There's always risk when installing something. You're better off with it though as SP2 will leave you with vunerabilities.

		jump		Jun 8, 2009
			vdt, windows is shit, but compared to their usual shit, 98se, 2000professional, and xp are very good systems (and hopefully soon "7") we would all prefer if the whole world used linux, then it would become even better and easier to use.. but as it is now, it's not any less frustrating than a microsoft product, only it is at least free and ahead of the times. i've had plenty of problems over the years but i think you don't have much to complain about. its a security risk to be using sp1 these days.. so just download sp3 already i think outpost firewall is the best. download it, find the key (which is getting harder) or buy it.. as for viruses it's good to have at least something like avg to scan files you've downloaded from p2p before you run them.. but if you already have a virus download kaspersky and let it scan for the 2-6 hours.. because it finds them much better than free junk like avg. but it's resource heavy to be always running btw their suites are junk. outpost is not a good av, kaspersky is not a good firewall, but together!

		cww80		Aug 11, 2009
			I recently switched to Linux. I tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu and Linux Mint. I then came across PCLinuxOS; I find it to be the best and most like Windows. That is without all the crappy Viruses, Spyware/Adware, Trojans, etc.

		Kuta		Aug 13, 2009
			Hows the software support for that?

		cww80		Aug 13, 2009
			I have yet to find a Windows program that doesn't have a Linux equivalent/equal. http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software... There's always Wine, or Play on Linux. or even the commercial emulator variety; for Windows programs. It also uses the Synaptic package manager. You can also install from the Terminal. I like it and have not booted Windows since I started using it.

		Kuta		Aug 14, 2009
			How about commercial games? Is there any Windows emulation software for Linux?

		cww80		Aug 14, 2009
			Yes. Wine, Play On Linux, Cedega, etc. They are all based on Wine. Some are commercial, some are free. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)...

		mtxblau		Aug 17, 2009
			Generally speaking, I use nLite on my XP installs - every time a service pack comes out, I slipstream the latest, add all my tweaks and create an iso. Saves several hours of tweaking and installing updates, especially across multiple PCs. I like linux for the most part, but even debian minimal + lxde is still pretty slow compared to XP (for me based on the above). I would definitely say that Wine is not mature enough to replace windows for commercial games, especially with the much more exotic versions of DRM that make their way through commercial PC games. It's kind of hit or miss with older games especially. The unfortunate thing about linux right now is that it's vogue; there is a growing contingent of users who don't bother to setup iptables or much more importantly are simply ok with running a deb or rpm from a third party without a second thought; neither require a pgp key and can contain all sorts of malicious code. I don't think there are any cases of malicious code being spread this way, but it's a blase attitude that's typical of Windows users that could have major ramifications in the future.

		ExCyber		Aug 17, 2009
			mtxblau said: I like linux for the most part, but even debian minimal + lxde is still pretty slow compared to XP (for me based on the above). This might be a graphics driver problem. The Linux graphics stack has been undergoing a fairly painful transition (still in progress) for the past year or so, and even before that there were issues with a lot of drivers not accelerating most of the X Render extension, with the software fallbacks being really slow (leading at least one desktop environment to just use pure software rendering for better performance). It seems like there have been a lot of false starts in X-land, but the current work is pretty promising.