Re: [Thinkpad] Thinkpad and Now etc etc... Win XP ??

I have extended desktop on multiple monitors working on Win2K on my
R40. But, I had to install the ATI video driver to make it work.

-Bob

Rob Bell wrote:

> Jim Fleegens wrote:
>
>> I'm behind in my message reading, so sorry to backtrack, but I'd just
>> like to chime in: (I have no technical sophistication with regard to
>> operating systems or much else compared to what I read on this list
>> but) On XP-Pro, I average 2 or 3 "Send Error Report to Microsoft"
>> messages a day. Certain webpages eg Neteller consistently crash the
>> browser (but not since I got around to moving to Firefox--but I still
>> get a couple Error Reports with firefox). Even My
>> Documents/Windows Explorer hangs and crashes about 10-20% of the
>> time.
>> The reason I sought out XP over 2K was because according to my
>> research XP supports the extended desktop over an external monitor
>> and 2K does not. (I imagine there probably is a way to do it with
>> 2K... .)
>
>
> No, Win2K does not support multiple monitors.
>
>> Just to reflect that people's experiences seem to vary widely, from
>> highly, to hardly, stable.
>
>
> Jim,
>
> When I've encountered users with Windows experiences like you have
> been having I try to recommend the following things to them to get
> back to a stable system. No OS will work very well for the long term
> without some care and attention. It is up for debate if Windows is
> better or worse than other OSes in this regard, but the fact is if you
> take care of it it will be stable. Unfortunately, most 'non-techie'
> PC users don't really find out what types of things they should be
> doing to make their experience better. This is very unfortunate, and
> I feel it is a big roadblock that stands in the way of more users
> having good experiences with PCs. If you start with a clean system
> and follow these tips you WILL NOT have frequent crashes and 'error
> reports'. The only exception to that may be if you end up with
> misbehaved hardware devices or device drivers.
>
> 1. Get a good anti-virus program installed and keep it up to date with
> the latest virus definitions. Constant updating is best, weekly
> updates are a minimum.
>
> 2. Ditch Internet Explorer in favor of one of the alternatives that
> are not so heavily picked on by hackers and that have fewer inherent
> security problems. I recommend any of the Mozilla-based browsers like
> Mozilla, Firefox, or Netscape.
>
> 3. Protect your PC with a tool that monitors what files are being
> executed and prevents unknown files from running. BlackICE PC
> Protection is an example of this. When you install it on a fresh,
> clean system it scans the hard drive(s) and memorizes all the files.
> Whenever anything tries to run it compares the file to the known list
> and makes sure it hasn't changed. If it is new or different then it
> offers the user a chance to abort or allow it to run. With a tool
> like this there is just no way that a trojan, virus exe, spyware, etc.
> can run. BlackICE costs $39... it is a no-brainer.
>
> 4. Be prudent about what apps you install. Don't just install every
> piece of shareware or freeware crud you find. If you don't really
> need it don't clutter your system with it. Revisit your system from
> time to time and uninstall old software that doesn't get used. Along
> the same lines as this, don't let every app that offers to install
> itself to the system tray do that. The more crud you have running at
> once the more chance for problems. Get rid of all those 'quick
> launch' things that tend to accumulate in your system tray. If you
> have more than 6-8 icons in the tray you probably have more than you
> need.
>
> 5. If you have a Windows-based system then keep it up-to-date with
> Microsoft security patches (via Windows Update). Set Windows to tell
> you when they are available and apply them when they are. I've always
> been skeptical of allowing MS to dump patches on me, but I have to say
> that in the entire time MS has been doing this I've only had one case
> where an update caused a problem. I support about a half-dozen PCs of
> various OSes directly, so this isn't a trivial observation.
>
> 6. Defrag your hard drive a couple of times a year.
>
> 7. Back up your important data because something bad will eventually
> happen to your disk.
>
> 8. Don't ever download or execute an file (attachment) received via
> e-mail unless you know for a fact that the user intended to send it
> and you were expecting it. If you weren't expecting an attachment it
> takes very little effort to reply to the sender and ask them what it is.
>
> 9. Install one of the good spyware/adware removal tools and run it
> every few weeks or monthly. With the other protections listed above
> you have little chance of a problem here, but it can't hurt. Two
> decent ones are Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware.
>
> 10. Almost got to #10 but I couldn't think of anything else. Anyone??
>
> This stuff isn't specific to ThinkPads, but I gained much of this
> related experience while using ThinkPads and it certainly does offer
> value to ThinkPad users so I feel it is appropriate for this list.
>
> Later,
> Rob
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>

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Received on Thu Dec 23 17:17:44 2004