xp rants

[oldman420]

as wonderfull as xp is as an os there are some things that p-1ss me off.
here are a few post your own and any solutions you have come up with.
1.take a tour of xp baloon
2, network constantly balooning me with useless info,ie linksys connected network bridge connected, even when there is no changes
3,volume set to blow the speakers on any audio driver install.
as for the volume thing i just remember to turn it down before reboot
i would love to get rid of all of the popup baloons but dont know how
blah blah i rant on
jerome

 

[acemcmac]

multiple montior support between AIW's and PCI video for 2nd and 3rd montors ATi blames on flaws in windows. I just want it fixed.

 

[dabuddha]

The take a tour only comes up when you install windows. Afterwards, it's gone.

 

[oldman420]

i have had take a tour pop up months after install after using remote desktop

 

[crazycarl]

i hate the search window, its so annoying. and i hate WiMP and IE

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: oldman420
as wonderfull as xp is as an os there are some things that p-1ss me off.
here are a few post your own and any solutions you have come up with.
1.take a tour of xp baloon
2, network constantly balooning me with useless info,ie linksys connected network bridge connected, even when there is no changes
3,volume set to blow the speakers on any audio driver install.
as for the volume thing i just remember to turn it down before reboot
i would love to get rid of all of the popup baloons but dont know how
blah blah i rant on
jerome

1. 311489 - How to Suppress the Windows Tour Prompt in Windows XP
2. Sounds like a driver issue.
3. Sounds like a driver issue.

Also, 307729 - HOW TO: Disable Notification Area Balloon Tips in Windows XP

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: crazycarl
i hate the search window, its so annoying. and i hate WiMP and IE

You can configure the search window to look and behave exactly like Windows 2000.

 

[oldman420]

sorry for the mispost thanks for moving this to the right place mod

 

[Booty]

Windows Messenger (MSN-type thing, not the service) being in your face all the time...

I know it can be dealt with, but I think the point of this whole thread is the annoying *default* behaviors of Windows XP... crap that's turned on and wants attention all the time that should be off by default.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: acemcmac
multiple montior support between AIW's and PCI video for 2nd and 3rd montors ATi blames on flaws in windows. I just want it fixed.

ATI has been blaming MS for years. They got the dev discs during the OS product cycle, they could have made sure their cards all worked, but they decided instead to continue with their long-term, well-known legacy of writing crappy drivers.

Hey, when people complained to Matrox that using an nVidia PCI card wasn't compatible in a dual-monitor machine, Matrox said, "Yeah, we know, we just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet". Unlike ATI, a pairing of two Matrox cards worked fine

 

[acemcmac]

Originally posted by: Slugbait

Originally posted by: acemcmac
multiple montior support between AIW's and PCI video for 2nd and 3rd montors ATi blames on flaws in windows. I just want it fixed.

ATI has been blaming MS for years. They got the dev discs during the OS product cycle, they could have made sure their cards all worked, but they decided instead to continue with their long-term, well-known legacy of writing crappy drivers.

Hey, when people complained to Matrox that using an nVidia PCI card wasn't compatible in a dual-monitor machine, Matrox said, "Yeah, we know, we just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet". Unlike ATI, a pairing of two Matrox cards worked fine

unfortunatley... ATi > Matrox if you wanna do anything more than desktop work.... I am a very serious gamer... 9800 + 9000 seemed like the best way to go. I got burned. my next card will be nvidia. f-this.

 

[styrafoam]

-I have a 1 to 2 minute lag between the time the desktop comes up and the time the computer is usable. The comp will finish booting, the harddrive light is off, after a minute or two the network connection icon and the winfast wizard icon pop up in the system tray. I cant access the net until after the icon comes up, I have tired almost everything I can think of as far as network settings, tweaking services and updating drivers but it has done this since the last time I installed so I think it has something to do with SP1 and driver install order. I tried Bootvis to see if that gave me any insight and it doesn't give a long enough snapshot to catch what happens when the connection goes live. I am too lazy to do a reinstalll, to see if the problem goes away with experimentation as multiple people use this computer. I have seen this happen on 2 other computers.

-On 2 of my computers I have had games somehow turn EAX(or what I assumed to be EAX) on for all of windows. Everything that comes through the soundcard has tons of reverb and echo(winamp, TV tuner, any game played, windows sounds, etc). Both computers have Live Value cards. In one instance I uninstalled/reinstalled the soundcard drivers, in the other I had to do a system restore as the reinstallation of drivers did nothing.

 

[Aleksandar]

Originally posted by: styrafoam
-I have a 1 to 2 minute lag between the time the desktop comes up and the time the computer is usable. The comp will finish booting, the harddrive light is off, after a minute or two the network connection icon and the winfast wizard icon pop up in the system tray. I cant access the net until after the icon comes up, I have tired almost everything I can think of as far as network settings, tweaking services and updating drivers but it has done this since the last time I installed so I think it has something to do with SP1 and driver install order. I tried Bootvis to see if that gave me any insight and it doesn't give a long enough snapshot to catch what happens when the connection goes live. I am too lazy to do a reinstalll, to see if the problem goes away with experimentation as multiple people use this computer. I have seen this happen on 2 other computers.

i got the same problem man sometimes i hate it sometimes i just dont care anyway i cant fix it.

explorer sux
messenger sux

tried to install windows 98 on this comp one time but i cant it gives me some error something on the mobo
so i use xp deam

 

[PC Freak]

Best Windows XP tweak ever....

Change the stupid search window...

Regedit:
HKey_currect_user
Software
Microsoft
Windows
CabinetState
Create a new Key named ?Use Search Asst? and set the value to ?no?.

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: styrafoam
-I have a 1 to 2 minute lag between the time the desktop comes up and the time the computer is usable. The comp will finish booting, the harddrive light is off, after a minute or two the network connection icon and the winfast wizard icon pop up in the system tray. I cant access the net until after the icon comes up, I have tired almost everything I can think of as far as network settings, tweaking services and updating drivers but it has done this since the last time I installed so I think it has something to do with SP1 and driver install order. I tried Bootvis to see if that gave me any insight and it doesn't give a long enough snapshot to catch what happens when the connection goes live. I am too lazy to do a reinstalll, to see if the problem goes away with experimentation as multiple people use this computer. I have seen this happen on 2 other computers.

-On 2 of my computers I have had games somehow turn EAX(or what I assumed to be EAX) on for all of windows. Everything that comes through the soundcard has tons of reverb and echo(winamp, TV tuner, any game played, windows sounds, etc). Both computers have Live Value cards. In one instance I uninstalled/reinstalled the soundcard drivers, in the other I had to do a system restore as the reinstallation of drivers did nothing.

Number 1 sounds like an issue with some program that is running at startup. If you run msconfig, you should be able to get a list of the startup programs that you can enable/disable in order to find the culprit.

Number 2 sounds like faulty Creative drivers (no surprise there).

 

[styrafoam]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: styrafoam
-I have a 1 to 2 minute lag between the time the desktop comes up and the time the computer is usable. The comp will finish booting, the harddrive light is off, after a minute or two the network connection icon and the winfast wizard icon pop up in the system tray. I cant access the net until after the icon comes up, I have tired almost everything I can think of as far as network settings, tweaking services and updating drivers but it has done this since the last time I installed so I think it has something to do with SP1 and driver install order. I tried Bootvis to see if that gave me any insight and it doesn't give a long enough snapshot to catch what happens when the connection goes live. I am too lazy to do a reinstalll, to see if the problem goes away with experimentation as multiple people use this computer. I have seen this happen on 2 other computers.

-On 2 of my computers I have had games somehow turn EAX(or what I assumed to be EAX) on for all of windows. Everything that comes through the soundcard has tons of reverb and echo(winamp, TV tuner, any game played, windows sounds, etc). Both computers have Live Value cards. In one instance I uninstalled/reinstalled the soundcard drivers, in the other I had to do a system restore as the reinstallation of drivers did nothing.

Number 1 sounds like an issue with some program that is running at startup. If you run msconfig, you should be able to get a list of the startup programs that you can enable/disable in order to find the culprit.

Number 2 sounds like faulty Creative drivers (no surprise there).

On #1, trust me it isn't I have been through the startup with a fine tooth comb with msconfig, hijack this, checked the run and run once folders in the registry, etc. The first time I noticed it was immediately after installing SP1 which was directly after a reformat but before any drivers/utilities or software was installed.

On #2 fair enough, I just wish I knew how to put it back without doing a blanket fix.

 

[crazycarl]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: crazycarl
i hate the search window, its so annoying. and i hate WiMP and IE

You can configure the search window to look and behave exactly like Windows 2000.

thanks for pointing that out. i use it so infrequently and just hate it enough that i never tried messing with most of the options - I had already switched my computer to classic view and got rid of the dog, I guess I had given up hope. heh.

 

[Slugbait]

The first time I noticed it was immediately after installing SP1

There's a clue...my system always sucks after initial OS install. Once I install the mobo's chipset drivers, it speeds up considerably. There's also the possibility that DMA isn't being set up for your hard drive for some reason.

 

[ITguruXP]

Mainly Windows Messenger poping up out of no where.

 

[oldman420]

what about media player 9 hanging when you shut it down anybody know how to stop this?

 

[Spencer278]

How about the stupid there are unused Icon on your desktop wizard that pops up for no reason. Why the hell do I care and why do I need a freaken wizard to delete crap? The search sucks give me back the win98se search. The stupid message that comes up when you edit things with msconfig. Yes I know I turned off extra crap if I wanted to luanch msconfig I would use the run command

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: styrafoam
-I have a 1 to 2 minute lag between the time the desktop comes up and the time the computer is usable. The comp will finish booting, the harddrive light is off, after a minute or two the network connection icon and the winfast wizard icon pop up in the system tray. I cant access the net until after the icon comes up, I have tired almost everything I can think of as far as network settings, tweaking services and updating drivers but it has done this since the last time I installed so I think it has something to do with SP1 and driver install order.

You might have spyware installed that is trying to "phone home", or otherwise access the internet while booting. Do you have a static IP address specified for all of your network cards? If you don't, then Windows is probably trying to access a DHCP server, and timing out. It usually does it for 30 seconds. I had a similar problem with a freshly-installed Win98se system once, after mistakenly using the older WD DataLifeguard 2.6 software, which installed "Backweb" spyware, and caused havoc (sluggish, 100% CPU usage) during the boot process, on a system with a network card installed but no static IP address.

Edit: Just thought of something. Doesn't installing XP SP1, cause Messenger to attempt to auto-startup, if you only just disabled it, not un-installed it? Perhaps that's the problem, and it is taking mucho CPU while trying to startup and connect to the internet, all while waiting for the network driver stack to load and for the DHCP client to timeout.

Originally posted by: styrafoam
-On 2 of my computers I have had games somehow turn EAX(or what I assumed to be EAX) on for all of windows. Everything that comes through the soundcard has tons of reverb and echo(winamp, TV tuner, any game played, windows sounds, etc). Both computers have Live Value cards. In one instance I uninstalled/reinstalled the soundcard drivers, in the other I had to do a system restore as the reinstallation of drivers did nothing.

Funky. I don't trust Creative software at all. They are (IMO) far worse than even ATI in terms of questionable driver quality. (Actually, ATI has gotten worlds better over the last year or so.)

Maybe the two problems are related, actually. I know that certain revisions of the creative sound drivers do have a "phone home' component. Not sure if they still ship that with their drivers or not.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: styrafoam
On #1, trust me it isn't I have been through the startup with a fine tooth comb with msconfig, hijack this, checked the run and run once folders in the registry, etc. The first time I noticed it was immediately after installing SP1 which was directly after a reformat but before any drivers/utilities or software was installed.

Did you also check the list of Services, and their startup states?

 

[oconnect]

Originally posted by: MrChad

Originally posted by: crazycarl
i hate the search window, its so annoying. and i hate WiMP and IE

You can configure the search window to look and behave exactly like Windows 2000.

Really how do I do that?

 

[stash]

TweakUI