URGENT If you operate Windows XP please read

[CARLTON BROWN]

XP and all later MS operating systems I've used, seem to become slightly corrupted after a few years and really benefit from a complete re-installation. I assume MS will continue to operate their very tiresome authentication service for the foreseeable future?

[gmcbee]

Originally Posted by CARLTON BROWN

XP and all later MS operating systems I've used, seem to become slightly corrupted after a few years and really benefit from a complete re-installation. I assume MS will continue to operate their very tiresome authentication service for the foreseeable future?

I would assume so as well, unless there's an expiration clause written into the license agreement. I never read those things anyway. Molon labe!

I suppose I'll eventually end up keeping a non-net XP PC for my legacy apps and buy one with Win 7 for surfing. Or learn *nix.

I even have a Pentium II running 98 (not on the net, God no!) just as a printer driver for my old HP 1120. HP didn't make an XP driver, and the 1200 driver I found was buggy.

[9876543210]

CARLTON BROWN,

Originally Posted by CARLTON BROWN

XP and all later MS operating systems I've used, seem to become slightly corrupted after a few years and really benefit from a complete re-installation. I assume MS will continue to operate their very tiresome authentication service for the foreseeable future?

I'm not so sure about that. In fact, I had a recent experience which may indicate MS is actually working to get rid of the ease of XP install. Let me briefly explain.

A friend's business isn't doing all that well so she asked me if I'd be willing to reset one of her machines back to square one on XP with an old version of the Adobe suite.

I don't know how many times I've installed XP but it has to be in the hundreds. With this install I couldn't believe the problems on that machine once I'd installed SP3. Somewhere along the line something would screw up. To the point where I wound up reinstalling six or seven times. Eventually, I actually started a search to see if anyone else was running into any of these problems installing XP. I guess I'm not the only one wondering about this. As it turned out some of the problems were with some of her hardware but some I still don't understand.

When I was running XP I used to repartition and reinstall, on my own machines, about once a year. Maybe this will be getting harder to do.