I've got a 4pc network at home on a wireless LAN, running 2 machines on XP (one home, one pro version), one on w2K and one on windows ME. So far XP is proving to be excellent, subject to a few warnings. It has a nice smooth feel and you can set all the personalisations to look just like w2k. One warning would be on xp drivers if you have any wireless LAN cards. From Microsoft's hardware compatibility list there seem to be very few wireless cards with xp ready drivers. I was lucky with a Cisco card. Another warning would be to make sure you have the software upgrade for AOL via 56k modem if you use that. One of the nice things about xp is that the upgrade cd can check your system compatibility before you decide to upgrade. I was particularly concerned that broker java applications would not work but they seem to be fine (TWS and JTrader). Just uninstall them before upgrade and reinstall later. Regards, Michael
Did they ever do anything about the liscensing fiasco? Last I heard you had to call them for clearance everytime you reinstall XP.
I think that depends on your hardware. I've read a few articles that say unless you have the fastest multiprocessor system, you're better off staying with W2K. This is one of those articles I've read: www.infoworld.com/articles/tc/xml/01/10/29/011029tcwinxp.xml If you have a really slow machine like I do, a 266MHz, you're better off with Windows NT than W2K. So it really depends on your hardware. Even assuming you have enough hardware, for running mission critical applications, which trading is, you don't want to jump onto the initial few release of any software. Let them work out the bugs first...
Sarasota, I just installed XP about two weeks ago; I upgraded from Windows ME. So far, I am really pleased with it. It seems to be running alot smoother, and it is opening windows faster. I did have a problem installing it, because I had to download upgrade drivers for my sound card, video card, and printer. Everything worked ok except the video driver. This problem was resolved with the help of a technician from Microsoft, who called me back after I left a message and spent nearly two hours on the phone with me, and they were paying for the call. I finally resolved the problem by downloading the Windows 2000/XP driver for the video card from the Navidia web site. The only thing I do not like is that there is no free upgrade for norton antivirus. It cost about $25 bucks for the upgrade. Hope this helps.
I'm not surprised that you think XP is smoother/faster than ME. Just my opinion but you cannot even mention Win95/98 and especially ME in the same sentence with W2K or XP. They have done studies and the former group is over 20 times less reliable than the latter. Win95/98/ME is just not an option for trading.
the truth is : if you use a win98 system you must ONLY install your trading software on it and nothing else.. ever. you must have enough memory RAM and a fast hard disk. then your win98 system will be robust enough (clean install of course). win98 is not that unstable in good conditions. the problem is it can get very unstable easily. that's a different story. I used it for a while and did not have major problems related to the OS itself. OF COURSE : any serious trader (who needs to do more with the machine than just have 2 programs installed) need something better. Nowadays that's Win2000 any day of the week. WinXP is big and OK it is smooth (when you have a new and fast machine) but I don't see ANY advantage for a trader or someone working semi or total pro. At the moment the best deal is Win2000 Pro (aka NT5). This is strong, this is fast, really fast and well tested / proven. As usual with MSFT products, XP will be worthwhile in 2 / 3 years with newer machines. that was the case with Win2000 and now it is good for us. tntneo
Well let me take the other side of this discussion. I used Win2K on a three monitor system and did not like it. A major pain in the butt if you use it as it is supposed to be used with system administration separated from users. Loading software is difficult because you have to do so as the system administrator. Once loaded there is no guarantee that the software will run under user control. Many packages do not. The ACPI interface is just plain lousy. Using Win2K on a LAN with file sharing is also problematic when the other machines are running some other OS's (Win 95 or 98). I finally gave up on it and switched to Win 98 SE. Runs fine with all the software I like installed. My LAN now has no problems. As far as XP goes- I leave it to you guys who like to jump on the new models before anyone else. I will wait for version 2. When anyone asks me about what OS to use now, I recommend Win98 SE. All new machines I build now I still build with Win98 SE.
Why not just run win2k as the Adminstrator all the time? That's basically what you're doing with win98 (in the sense that you have permission to do whatever you want). Considering that win2k implements file security in a totally different manner than win95/98, it's not surprising to hear that there would be LAN file sharing problems, especially with a non-supported legacy OS like win95. It's good to hear that your setup meets your needs though.
BARON-yes you could run Win2K that way but that was not its intended purpose. It was designed to save you from yourself by separating out the administrative functions from user functions. It was really designed for an office environment not home use. Being a Unix user, I found Win2K to be laughable at best. It satisfied neither the home user nor the office user. That's why there are now two versions of XP. If XP lives up to all its hype, I would expect to see 98 and 2K to recede into history. However, it's taken 2 years to learn how crummy Win2K really is. It will take at least that long to evaluate WinXP. My hope however is to see some other competing operating system enter this arena(perhaps some offshoot of UNIX, like LINUX)