Steve Bass's Home Office: Thinking of an XP Upgrade? Read This

... And cry. Incompatibilities, bugs, patches, broken promises.

Steve Bass

Some of you have taken the Windows XP plunge. Others are running XP on a test PC but haven't had the gumption to load it onto their production PCs yet. But I'll bet millions more are waiting for the first big patch from Redmond. What's everyone so afraid of? Incompatibilities, bugs, broken promises, and yet more incompatibilities.

XP Gotchas

Scott Spanbauer is one of my favorite Windows experts (and a PC World Contributing Editor). The guy pulls no punches when it comes to XP, and his "XP's Gotchas" story is an example of his attitude. His motto? "Prepare to patch. Or upgrade. Or both." One infuriating bit of business? Many antivirus software, CD burning tools, and drive partitioning utilities won't work with Windows XP unless you upgrade them. You can get right up to speed with the big picture by jumping to the chart on page 2.

Another good place to pick up some help with XP is Stuart "Bugs" Johnston's How-To column. His "Bugs and Fixes: Holes Galore in Microsoft Programs" leads you to the patches that'll make XP safe and secure (until next month, that is).

BTW, while many peripherals still don't have XP drivers, a reader sent me his secret: Use Windows 2000 drivers with XP. [Steve, did you check this out? Maybe we should hedge and say "I haven't tested this thoroughly, but here's a suggestion from a reader that may be worth trying."--Editor (Translation? Don't send me a gazillion e-mails if you can't find your favorite driver.)] This trick worked with his HP LaserJet 3150 and Zoom modem. Where do you get W2K drivers? (What, you didn't think I was prepared?) Try the product vendor's site first, then go to DriverZone.com.

Holey Product Activation, Batman!

Of course if you're still fuming about XP's Product Activation (aka copy protection) feature, Yardena Arar's sidebar will have you smoking. It turns out that at least two hacks are readily available for defeating Product Activation. This means honest consumers are paying dearly while people in the know are getting away with free copies. Read "Update: Product Activation Hacked."

Sorry, the story doesn't reveal the hacks. Of course, you needn't fume: I enjoy liberties not available to other PC World writers. Here's an easy hack: Simultaneously tap the Ctrl-Alt-F1-Insert-Del keys, race quickly to the northeast corner of your office, stand on one leg, and spin in a counterclockwise direction (clockwise in Australia) while whistling an off-Broadway tune. Use a Broadway show tune if you're feeling exceptionally musical. Call me if it works.

Quick XP tip: XP's Task Manager is a hot utility. Get to it by using the three-finger salute and pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del. In addition to letting you shut down misbehaving applications, the Task Manager shows you the network performance and lets you monitor CPU usage, physical, and kernel memory, as well as check out what processes are running in the background. I created a Task Manager shortcut on the Quick Launch portion of the Taskbar. To do the same, open Windows Explorer, navigate to the \Windows\System32 folder, and drag-and-drop Taskmgr.exe on the Quick Launch as a shortcut.

Unhappy XP Campers

Some Gateway customers are furious that they can't upgrade to XP. In June, many folks ordered new Gateway PCs, paid an extra $15, and were promised XP upgrade kits for delivery in October. They're still waiting. Read Tom Mainelli's story "Some Customers Still Waiting for XP Upgrades."

Dig this: Annoyed with Microsoft? Disgusted by its policies? You're not alone. Here's a story about the how an ex-president of Italy told Microsoft what he thought of Windows XP.

Save Some Dinero

While you're still pondering whether XP's worth the upgrade, make sure you read about Plus, Microsoft's add-on package. Most people I talk to think it should've been part of Windows XP and that Microsoft's just greedy. (Me included.) Senior Editor Yardena Arar thinks it's a waste of $40. Enjoy her rant in "XP Plus Rates a Big D-Minus."

A much better program to fiddle with is Microsoft's free PowerToys for Windows XP. It's contains a dozen cool utilities, including the Power Calculator, Webcam Timershot, and Virtual Desktop Manager.

My user group buddy (and troubleshooting expert) Rod Ream told me about his favorite PowerToy: the Task Switcher, an Alt+Tab Enhancement utility. The regular Alt+Tab hot-key combo lets you switch from one application to another. One dumb thing about the Task Switcher is that if you have, say, several Web pages open, they all look alike; it's often hard to figure out which one you'd like to switch to. PowerToys gives you a snappier Alt+Tab graphical interface with a neat-o snapshot of each page as you flip through the open pages. WARNING: Unless you want to hose your PC, don't mix and match this copy of PowerToys with older version of Windows.

BTW, are you wondering when your operating system's number is up and Microsoft unplugs tech support? Microsoft knows all and tells all on its Product Lifecycle Guidelines page. For instance, Windows 95 users expired on November 30, 2001 while MS DOS x.xx, Windows 3.xx, and NT 3.5x all hit the bit bucket on December 31, 2001 (may they rest in peace). This site prepares you for the worst for each version of Windows.

Dig this: So you think you're the only one who has to sit through long-winded, boring PowerPoint presentations? Nope. I have proof that it happened as early as 1863. Don't take my word for it; get ready to doze through the "The Gettysburg PowerPoint Presentation."

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