OK. I upgraded from Windows 98SE to Windows XP Home Edition. So far so good. Everything’s running nicely, and it doesn’t seem to ever crash.
Then I figured, OK, why not upgrade to the current version of IE, since my OS will now support it. Did that, no problem.
However, now it seems like pages download a lot more slowly. Is this a normal thing with either Windows XP or IE7? I’ve scanned for spyware, and that didn’t make any difference. I’ve waited several days, thinking it might have something to do with cached jpg’s, etc., but it hasn’t speeded up to where it was with the old setup.
Assuming you can’t ditch the POS, you will very likely have to live with the slowdown XP and IE are famous pieces of bloatware. Try Safari for windows, if you want speed (not that it doesn’t have issues); Firefox is pretty much bloatware, too, by now.
If all you do on your computer is write text, browse the web and send emails, consider getting a linux flavor. They are pretty easy to install, stable and fast for all common areas.
There may be stuff to do with XP & IE - but I wouldn’t know.
I love the Mac commercials. However, switching computers isn’t feasible, so I’ll have to do the best I can with what I have. I’ll run the disk defrag sequence tonight.
The slight slowdown is only a mild annoyance, and I’ll get used to it if it can’t be improved. It definitely beats having the computer freeze and having to reboot several times a day.
Windows is notorious for not cleaning up after itself with regards to its temporary files.
I’ve seen computers where %TEMP% would contain over 15,000 .tmp files. This will make the computer run very slow, and it will also cause it to be increasingly unstable and likely to crash as the files build up.
Jerry, do it first! Get rid of that stuff before you defrag, if you delete it later you will just make new empty spots on the hard drive for it to fragment into…
I’m almost through with the defrag sequence (paused at the moment). I did a disc cleanup before I started defragging. Would that have removed the temp files? In any case, I can defrag again overnight tomorrow after I delete the temp files. The computer’s already noticeably faster, BTW.
I really, really hate macs. They’re bloody horrible.
Don’t listen to the propaganda, it’s mostly lies and half truths from the mac zealots (as that’s what they are). Overpriced, half assed pieces of rubbish.
Keep the real computer, don’t buy one of those toys.
I’m inclined to side with Chris on this one. One of our friends got a Mac a few years ago. She couldn’t do a thing with it. She lent it to us so we could get to grips with it. So we get some experience of working with a mac. But she never got her head around it and eventually sent it back and got a Windows machine. Another friend has got a macbook, and has scuppered the cd/dvd drive by sticking a non-standard sized disk in (an installation disk from her ISP).
It tends to be a European thing, that the culture here is more Windows. On the other hand, Macs do not seem to have improved over the years. The opposite, in fact.
During the past couple of years or so, Mac computers have been using Intel chips, just as Microsoft does, and these newer Macs are a new breed, quite unlike the earlier models. This one I’m using, for instance, is more than a year old, and in that time I’ve been all around the e-world on it, without a hitch, trouble free. All in all, I’ve never used a PC as reliable as this Mac. No viruses, no spyware, no file corruption, and de-frag does not exist.
But on the whole, most people’s experiences are like that regardless or what machine they’re using. My Vista machine is over a year old and it’s never had a virus infection, spyware, file corruption or been de-fragged either.
Wow, I’ve never seen so much advertising for a Mac on a thread where the original poster already said he doesn’t want to switch to a Mac. Kind of impressive, in a weird way.
I might someday consider a mac…if someone purchased replacement Mac software to take the place of all my PC software. Some of which, like Photoshop, was quite expensive. The hardware isn’t the only consideration when contemplating an OS switch.
(And if you’re contemplating telling me to put a Windows OS on a Mac…it seems rather pointless to get rid of a windows machine in favour of a mac and then put windows on it… )
)