Windows XP Professional

[Geoffrey]

Will Windows XP Professional run FS2002 any faster than Windows Millenium Edition? I tried Windows XP Home and it appeared to be slower than Windows ME !

[sean377]

I doubt that XP Professional will run any different than XP Home. They are essentially the same operating system (just as FS2K professional is the same as FS2K standard with extras).

The difference in framerates between Win ME and XP Home for me were un-noticeable. Did you upgrade ME or do a clean install? That may explain a slight difference. Most people who upgrade any operating system to another seem to have more problems than those that do a clean install.

Sean
EGNT

[davemitch]

I have been thinking about upgrading from 98 to XP. If you buy the XP upgrade, it says that it looks for a previous version before installing, so how can you do a clean install? Do you have to buy the full XP software at double the price, or is there some way around it?

[bjdavis]

If a previous version of windows is not found it will ask you to insert your install disk for the previous version to verify you have one. Thus the way to do a clean install.

Brian

[Geoffrey]

LAST EDITED ON Jul-30-02 AT 05:19PM (EDT)[p]I upgraded. Big mistake. If I do try a clean install w/ XP Home or Pro, are there really any benefits? They say the new operating systems are more reliable. Is this your experience?

>I doubt that XP Professional will
>run any different than XP
>Home. They are essentially the
>same operating system (just as
>FS2K professional is the same
>as FS2K standard with extras).
>
>
>The difference in framerates between Win
>ME and XP Home for
>me were un-noticeable. Did you
>upgrade ME or do a
>clean install? That may explain
>a slight difference. Most people
>who upgrade any operating system
>to another seem to have
>more problems than those that
>do a clean install.
>
>Sean
>EGNT

[Geoffrey]

I went back to Millenium with the Recovery Disc. I assume I now have the option to go to either Home or Pro. However, next time, if at all, a clean install for me.

>I have been thinking about upgrading
>from 98 to XP. If
>you buy the XP upgrade,
>it says that it looks
>for a previous version before
>installing, so how can you
>do a clean install? Do
>you have to buy the
>full XP software at double
>the price, or is there
>some way around it?

[JETninja]

I recommend you do a clean install. WinXP when installed OVER an existing install, often messes up the FAT or NTFS chunk size on the hd....making them way too small and affecting HD performance. I dont remember the particulars. (I think 512K was Optimum..upgrades often where at 64k..and takes other software to correct) I learned about over the months through Scotts Newsletter www.scottsnewsletter.com

You won't really see more fps...but everyone says it runs better/looks better...and it it much more stable. MUCH! I will never touch a Win9X coded OS again. I've been running XP Pro since October...I have 7 Sims loaded and they all rock.

[sean377]

If you do decide to do a clean install, don't forget to BACKUP. Once you've hit [ENTER] to confirm you want to format your C: drive, there's no going back. It's normally just after that you remember about all that important stuff you've accumulated over the last 2 years!

Sean
EGNT

[Geoffrey]

Well, based on your advice, I took the plunge -- $300 for XP Professional. The first time I installed it "clean", I ended up with both the old and new operating systems crammed into a 3 Gig partition at the end of my 40 Gig drive. The trick turned out to be to boot up from the install CD. That way, you end up with a truly "clean" install, and you can change the partitions on the disk to your liking as well. You were absolutely right. No speed increase (at least, not very much). But WOW --the increased improvement in the graphics and especially in the stability is awe inspiring. To say nothing of all of the extra little goodies you get in XP Pro. I used to spend about 25% of my time rebooting because the simulator would lock up. (Trying to set up a GEForce4 TI4600 was another story....) Hopefully those days are gone forever. I recommend the upgrade to anyone with a computer with enough horsepower to handle it. Now, if I could only figure out where to get a CPU upgrade, I'd be in business...


>I recommend you do a clean
>install. WinXP when installed OVER
>an existing install, often messes
>up the FAT or NTFS
>chunk size on the hd....making
>them way too small and
>affecting HD performance. I dont
>remember the particulars. (I think
>512K was Optimum..upgrades often where
>at 64k..and takes other software
>to correct) I learned about
>over the months through Scotts
>Newsletter www.scottsnewsletter.com
>
>You won't really see more fps...but
>everyone says it runs better/looks
>better...and it it much more
>stable. MUCH! I will never
>touch a Win9X coded OS
>again. I've been running XP
>Pro since October...I have 7
>Sims loaded and they all
>rock.

[crossave]

If you buy the upgrade version of XP, you can still do a clean install. When you insert the cd, it is bootable. Somewhere early in the setup process, it will ask you to insert a previous windows cd to verify the upgrade. Then you put the XP back in and installation continues. That's it!

[JETninja]

Good Deal!

Keep it up to date with Windows Update, check weekly if you can. Also check out drivers monthly for things like your sound card, video, CD Burning (if not using WinXP's..I use NERO), MB (like 4n1's if thats what your MB uses), etc...XP's new and drivers are always getting improved.

You can dress it up cool too...my log on screen (have log ons for each family member..secure!) is a cool LOTR's one...

Cheers!

[eagle013]

LAST EDITED ON Aug-02-02 AT 02:47PM (EDT)[p]I just got XP Home for $0 from MS... I played some games for them, had fun, and they gave me software of my choice. Oh, I also signed a non-disclosure agreement saying that's all I can tell you. Will installing it have a bad impact on my framerates? I'm upgrading from 98 (not SE).

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3cccc5644eca1379.jpg

[sean377]

To truly install 'clean' you should have reformatted your hard drive. That gets rid of all the crud. Then its impossible to have anything than a true 'clean' XP installation

Sean
EGNT

[KenG01]

In all likelihood, you won't see any dramatic (or even measureable) increase in FS performance. The benefit is in the stability of the code. My suggestion to improve XP performance is to turn off some of the fancier features once you've played with them. For example, all the sliding/fading menus, the transparent fonts on desktop icons, etc. They're neat at first, but rob a bit of performance. Having 256MB RAM is a minimum. I found XP will run extremely well (better in some regards than 98SE) with 512MB RAM. With XP, you really don't need to reboot everytime before you run FS. The XP (NT) code does not suffer from system resource handling problems of Win9X. That is, you won't wind up with 50% system resources just because you left your system on for a day or so. I haven't had to reboot XP but a couple times (for system updates) since I installed it a week or 2 ago.

-----
Ken G:-wave

[mikeymcc]

As a technical Windows software developer I can tell you from personal experience that the upgrade path in fact installs a different version of XPhome than does the from-clean-hard-drive path.

Based on experience with the various betas and release candidates, my impression is that the upgrade path installs RC2 rather than the official retail release of XPhome. (This impression is based on the way Windows Explorer and certain other components appear and behave.) It was also my experience that the official retail release is more reliable than RC2, most likely because it had about 2-3 more months of development subsequent to when Microsoft froze RC2.

I also distinctly remember that when RC2 was released to the beta community Microsoft expressed particular interest in what was going to happen re upgrades as opposed to clean installs, suggesting that they were concerned about problems relating to upgrades.

So ...

My advice is that, after you do whatever incremental backups are advisable, you wipe your hard drive clean and install XP from scratch. (In fact you should ALWAYS do this when or reinstalling ANY operating system.)

As for XPpro versus XPhome, unless you need heavy-duty networking or heavy-duty incremental backups/restores of system components, you will do just fine with the Home version of XP.

Mike McCarthy

[soldano]

>As a technical Windows software developer
>I can tell you from
>personal experience that the upgrade
>path in fact installs a
>different version of XPhome than
>does the from-clean-hard-drive path.......


I am using WinMe and wanting to update to XP, what about deleting old windows and related aplications, leaving all the remaining information in muy HD and making then a new install.- Is this called a clean install ?
I cannot format my HD because I have not a way to backup all my files.-
I heard that XP offers the option of partitioning the HD in FAT or NTFS, which should I chose ?.-