On Wed June 21 2006 00:11, R Parker wrote:
> Is Windows any better? I've gotta setup a Windows box
> during the July 4th holiday. It would be great if the
> stupid thing threw me for a lope and I couldn't finish
> the job before leaving for home. lol
Basically, either Windows comes preinstalled on a PC and the
video and wifi and all that stuff that gives us trouble is
already working, BUT the thing is loaded down with nags to
register this or that and take this survey and warnings that
your computer is not adequately protected and there are a ton of
what appear to be programs but are actually just demos and there
are 37 icons in the system tray.... or you'll be installing it
from scratch, which these days takes about the same amount of
time as a decent Linux but is subject to some of the same
problems with obtaining and installing drivers.
Oh yeah, and in either case, you'll be needing to download and
install a bunch of stuff. Openoffice and Firefox come to mind
(friends don't let friends run IE, but MS Works is even worse),
but I also usually do gaim, acroread or foxit, java, flash, PDF
Creator, putty (for my own use), vncviewer (ditto), irfanview,
gimp, 7zip, and most surprisingly a codec pack (I was amazed at
how few video formats XP would play out of the box.) I keep all
that stuff on a usb memory key on my keychain and update it
whenever I remember to, because when people know that you're a
total tool they tend to ask you for help a lot.
Rob
Received on Wed Jun 21 12:15:07 2006
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