from cfxweb: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1284000/1284054.stm i am never going to install a product like that. renting an OS ????? or software???, i want to buy it, i don''t want to keep paying for a product on a monthly or yearly basis It will scan your systems hardware and send this information to microsoft. Did they ever hear about privacy????? what''s next??? access to my drive and read personal information (not as a bug, but as a so called "security feature", as they will probably going to call it) The big question, will XP be a good or a bad bet from MS?

I''m sure hoping that people will realize it for the evil thing that it really is, and not buy it. I''ve been fairly mad about it for a while, incase you haven''t noticed already .


http://druidgames.cjb.net/

it might come as a surprise to you but actually you dont even own win2000 or win98 even though youve brought them in the shop, ms still has ownership.

http://members.xoom.com/myBollux

You don''t ''own'' Linux either
But I''m still happy to use it

Windows XP is the one thing that will destroy them (if we''re luckey). Then there''s more bad news for us developers. ZERO BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY!!!! win98 is a 32bit OS. XP is a 64 bit. You won''t be able to read ANY old files. Won''t be able to run ANY old software. All your old code, you''ll have to retype. I think you can''t even read a 98 txt file! Aaaargg! Soon the time shall come for all to switch to 3rd part os, one will become industry standard, and all will be well again. What the heck is ms thinking by giving zero compatability?!?! There go over 50 cd''s of mine. Even if I do get stuck with winXP, I''m keeping a 98 sysm no matter how old it is...

-Alex

Um...not exactly...
Windows 98 is "basically" a 32 bit OS (with a little 16 bit code thrown in. Windows XP is also a 32 bit OS (a PURE 32 bits; no 16 bit code whatsoever). Yes, WinXP will be ported to the upcoming IA-64, but this means nothing for the hundreds of millions of people using 32 bit systems. Microsoft isn''t stupid enough to make a product which can''t run any existing software.

~~~~~~~~~~
Martee
http://www.csc.uvic.ca/~mdill

A little side note: Your hardware will be scanned to generate an unique key together with the registration code, I don''t really believe they keep all your HW info in a huge database...

But there are enough other options..
I''ve finally installed Linux (Mandrake 8.0) since monday and I must say that it''s a very nice OS with MUCH free quality software on those 2 MDK CD''s (wich you can d/l for free )
Actually, I''ve deleted my 2 windows partitions because they were f*cked up (partiton magic, blah, blah) and I haven''t reinstalled windows yet because I like Linux more now
Linux does also need less memory than windows (XP)
Only bad thing about Linux is that those default skins for KDE and Gnome really suck

Oh, and you can even get HW acceleration for your 3D card (OpenGL only of course )
(for playing TuxRacer on my GeForce2 MX... :p)
Heck, M$ doesn''t support OpenGL 1.2 in windows but Linux does, with help of Mesa and/or the official nVIDIA drivers!

And if you really need to run a windows16/32 or DOS app you can use Wine wich is also included on those 2D MDK CD''s

Last word: Don''t complain about WinXP if you don''t like it, just install Mandrake 8.0 and you''ll get all the good things for free :p (including KDevelop, wich is better than MSVC 6)

Used to be stuck with windows becouse i had no compiler for linux (delphi user)...but now, Kylix is here.. so what is the best distro when developing GL stuff?

Ekas78:

If you don''t want to do all the configuring stuff I would say go for Mandrake 8
It''s all pre-configured and really easy to work with.

Zero backwards compatability is not a bad thing...every so often you just have to say ... look we no longer support it. If you want to advance you have to let things go.

I bet if they took out all the backwards stuff the OS wouldn''t be so damn HUGE.



Jenison
"Take people out in an Impreza and folks say, "oooh". Take them out in a WRX and they say ''AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!''" - Subaru Salesmen who sold a WRX to me