ScuzzBlog: Diaries January 2020 Entry 31st January 2020: Post 02: Microsoft XP - The open Window. Microsoft XP - The open Window. Having done a recent review of my computer era from around 1981 to the current day I made reference to my XP machine which in truth is the only computer that I used regularly that I did not purchase for myself. The Evesham XP machine in question started its life with me at my place of work until it was decommissioned sometime in early 2008. Having decided to junk the computer I was asked if I wanted to place this machine in my special store. Which was basically code for ' if you want it take it '. So I did. First thing I do when I get a works machine is strip it of all the software loaded on the computer excepting the OS. I then throw in a second hard drive and then install a fresh OS onto another drive. A new drive. This way I get a squeaky clean OS with none of the ringing home crap that will have followed the software previously on the machine. Next I added a Soundblaster with the surround sound for my circle of speakers. And purchased a new NVIDIA TNT so I could play Warcraft. Next I gave the case a spring clean and set it up on a Samsung flat-screen DTV monitor. Ready to rock and roll. My journey from Win98 was a tricky one. I had bought an XP machine in 2003 but when I discovered the holes in its security and the fact it left the TCP/IP open all the time I chose to leave the computer off the internet and continue to use Win98. However by 2008 Norton dumped their support for Win98 and it was starting to get a bit of a struggle. So I bit the old bullet and set up the XP Pro and used that as my main machine from 2008 to the very beginning of 2011. Interestingly I was still using an XP machine at my place of work right up to Nov 2014. Although the practice moved over to Macs I was most fortunate not to have to suffer that torture. In respect of XP as an operating system it was pretty good. Started bad until MS introduced the security measures and firewall. For me I just needed to continue my usage of current software and on that count MS worked pretty well. Only downside was the search tool which I really hated. Anyhoo...for a number of years I played World of Warcraft on the computer, right up to the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King. Then I took the computer offline and basically brick walled it off the internet though still networked it to my army of PCs and the Amiga. The computer is called Candice after the very beautiful Ms Swanepoel the famous Victoria's Secret model, featured on the desktop. Regular readers will be aware that all my computers have female names and will most often than not have their image on the desktop. So what is the XP doing now. Well.. she sits atop another XP machine this time however made by HP and not Evesham. Although the HP machine is newer it is generally much the worse for not having the OS scrubbed, as its slower than a slow thing. This was also a gift from work. Dreadful computer. XP always starts very well but over time will get slower and slower and slower. Not my favourite OS and definitely not a weapon of choice. The XP years represent a period of significant change in the way computers are used. XP introduced an OS that was internet dependant and broadened all application use to utilising a phone home way of validating software. For the most part XP was the dawn of the serious security issues with computers and made hacking a real possibility when used continuously. MS were not prepared when they introduced XP and for many it was a rude awakening to online threats. Sure we needed to protect our systems before this date but after XP it became a serious problem and one you simply could not ignore. Also XP suffered more from exploding bloat than any OS to date. It just grew exponentially. Most XP machines simply ground to a halt under the waves of junk filtered into the system and never removed. I was so glad to rid myself of XP and move onto a much much better designed OS in the form of Win7. OK rather than discuss the computer further in this main text I have added a sprinkling of notes with the images. Microsoft XP - The open Window. Just a PC tin box. Nothing special. Has a floppy drive. Though disks are a pain to remove. The machine gave me DVi for the first time. Neat side panel removal. Wires and more wires. And big fans. Soundblaster Live 5.1 for surround sound. Some kind of firewire.. never used it. Clever Ethernet that was crap so I disabled the thing and used the onboard. Cards removed to show off the NVIDIA TNT I was real proud of my new GPU in the day. Spare SATA for copying hard drive data. This thing's only a Pentium 4. I mean seriously do you think the heat sink and fan are big enough? OK Time to boot up Windows Bloat. Ignore Candice Swanepoel. We are looking at XP Pro SP 3 Pentium 4 2.80GHz and 3GB RAM. I said stop looking at Candice. A massive single core and 0% CPU usage. First problem with XP and that was leaving the window open with no firewall. Whoops. Security was only patched later. My favourite FLV editor which Adobe bless them disabled on my Win7 machine with an update. The XP machine was never updated so it still works. Hamster also suffered from later updates on the Win7 machine. Again this one is OK and still converts way more files. Avidemux with an earlier version. And my stand alone Thumbs that I purchased but wouldn't work on the Win 7 machine. Another fatality was Terrapin which also had problems with Win 7. Thankfully I was able to play online games with XP, though even here I needed to access the hub settings to let the game in. The image here is of my character waiting at the newly opened Stormwind Harbor to go to Northrend for the first time at the launch of the Wrath of the Lich King 13 November 2008. Obviously World of Warcraft. That's a Talbuck mount a most frustrating mount to earn as you needed masses of rep from doing quests in Nagrand The gear is the Spellcloth set as I played Fire Mage. My last entries for 2010 for the website. The image isn't really faded it is just the light reflecting on the screen. Sorry for that. Although I am using Windows for the browser here I do have Firefox on the machine which cus it has never been updated has a lot more functionality for playing local intranet based files. For one it plays my FLV files without needing to ring home to Adobe. And if you are feeling especially brave, cus it has updates disabled I can sneak on the internet and download files and videos that otherwise have have been disabled by the later browsers. Not that I would do that... Now would I ? Again focus on EJAY and not Candice. My most favourite of music software ever created... Sadly wouldn't work with Windows 7. We can only hope... Just kidding

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Last updated 31st January 2020

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