have used 2000 up to now - no problems with it - except i use a lot of charts and run out of resources - i dont even know if this is an issue with 2000 or the rest of my setup - but i know it was an issue with 98 anway, will have to change to XP one day - is this the day or should i hang on
As 2000 is built on the 32-bit NT kernel you can't run out of "resources" since there is no resource limitation (as there was in the 16-bit kernels of Win95, Win98, and WinMe). You may be running out of ram or hard drive space or video memory, but not resources. In other words, you have a different hardware problem, and WinXP isn't going to make any difference in that regard as it's also built on the NT kernel.
i am using a dell 1 ghz with 512K of ram - would more ram really help - i think it would be wrong to say i have a problem, as i do have a lot of charts open - but my real point was not that i was looking to solve a problem - merely asking if this would be a good time to change to XP - is any experienced trader using a multi monitor setup using XP - having changed satisfactorilly from win 2000?
Stevet, IMHO, a better question to ask is: Why move to XP? Anytime Microsoft has introduced a new OS, that OS has all sorts of problems till at least Service Pack 2. In addition, many of the advantages that XP has over Win2K are either "retrofited" into Win2K, or the advantages don't make much of a difference to the typical trader. IMHO, it is a big mistake to use XP until at least SP2. From your question above, it sounds as if you need to add more RAM to your machine. You can check the performance of your system by using the task manager under Win2K. Does your machine start to aceess the disk alot after a while, even though you have not opened up any more charts/etc? If so, at least one of your programs probably has a "Memory Leak" (A technical term for programs that do manual memory management) If the problem happens as you open more and more charts, then it is a simple matter of lack of physical RAM. nitro
One thing you may want to do is open up Task Manager and look at your processes. The amount of memory each app is using will be displayed there along with the total memory usage.
task manager is less than useless for any sort of real time analysis of computer useage the reason that i dont use XP, is that i am very aware of the problems associated with Microsoft producing poorly implemented software i use 5 windows over 10 monitors with 50+ charts the reason i asked my question on here was because i wanted to know if anyone had moved from 2000 to XP and found an improvement in any area i know the theory - but just wanted to know if anyone had found any practical advantages of using XP