Installing Windows XP page

Windows XP
Welcome to the XP page. Windows XP brought many changes to the everyday computer user. It's fair to say that after Service Pack 2 XP was more stable, and far more up-to-date than Windows Millenium. At the same time, there were throngs of XP 'haters' ,and as the people of the world took to buying computers the list of gripes only got longer.
Windows XP almost seems to be a hash job; a team of developers going through and incorporating all the best features of past Windows into an NT environment.
Here are screenshots of installing Windows XP -

Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration...the classic NT setup screen.
And the odd 'Press F6 to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver...'

The 'Blue Screen of Death' was probably the most famous and most feard of Windows error screens. For some it was an omen.
Needless to say the blue screen was the classic NT setup page and no pun was intended.

The first noticeable change was the fact that you could agree to the Licensing Agreement on page 1 (press F8) without having to actually read or scroll through the 10+ pages of text...At right we are doing a 'clean install' on our 6 GB partition.

Being a Win98 fan, I quickly came up with 'Not Too F***ing Smart' as my personal meaning behind NTFS...
In reality it is a simple abbreviation for NT File System..At right Formatting a large disk in Windows could take a very long time...

..but this 6GB is going to be ready in under 5 minutes.
Windows XP Home released on January 30, 2007 will continue until April 14, 2009. Later extended a few years..
System requirements for XP: 300 MHz or higher processor,128 MB of RAM,1.5 GB of available hard disk space,CD-ROM,VGA monitor, and a mouse.

The minimum requirement of 128 MB of system RAM was a huge jump up from the 32MB needed for Millenium or Windows 2000.
It was widely reported that the actual minimum was 64MB and 128 was recommended by Microsoft.
And the 1.5GB was also a leap from the 800MB used by Windows 98 or ME, but hard disks were fairly cheap in this era.

Also the prices for RAM were going down so the upgrade in system parts was not a financial burden for most computer users.
Here we get to 18% and the huge 'Driver.cab' file seems to take a long time to create..

after that the install goes pretty quickly,and it just seems that the process is done. We have a long, long way to go.

'Setting startup configuration' I guess that means 'system writing to boot.log' , and at right we are up to our first system reboot.

"An Exciting New Look" is an understatement about the 'influence' XPs' style had over the computing world..

"Setup will complete in approximately 39 minutes" kind of translates into, 'it's safe to get a cup of coffee,or go to the restroom' ,etc

I did manage to get a picture each time the message on screen changed, but you will notice that they start to repeat near the end. This install was done on my Baby AT celeron 466mhz, so it takes a bit longer than the 39 minutes quoted.

And this is a XP Service Pack 1 disk we are using for the installation of XP Home.

The 466 did manage SP1 quite well, but I actually run Win Me on the system. When I installed SP3 (for fun) the computer looked like a 386 trying to run Win98.. Press power on,,go make coffee, come back and wait a little longer..

In my estimation, SP 1 runs pretty well on a PIII 500 MHz or a Celeron 600 MHz or better,
SP 2 is probebly better suited to a PIII 800 or faster, and SP 3 is best suited to a P4 computer.

"Surfing the net: safe,fast, and flexible I am willing to accept. But the "Have more fun with games" sounds terribly prophetic when you think about all the future 'headaches' XP users would encounter.There was a lot of innovative technology that didn't last long, and quickly became obsolete. Such as Indeo video codecs as my primary example..

"Connect your computers with easy home networking" I would have to agree; XP could network very well indeed.And incorporating a CD burner right into your operating system was another 'change' that made XP modern.

As stated, this is an installation of XP Home Edition.
The only real change when installing XP Professional was the name at the top of the dialogue boxes and the pages..

Here we have typed in our name, and the system creates a name for your computer,unless you change it to something of your own making .

This install was done on August 25,2010 at 12:00 noon . This was just for documentation purposes.
As you probably can tell from the dark background, it was a cloudy,rainy day and I had nothing better to do. So it seemed.

This screen is not a repeat yet, it just simply goes back to the last screen before the name and time dialogue boxes.

"Get support for the programs and devices you use at home" didn't take into consideration my boxful of ISA soundcards and network cards.
Well I bought them cheap on eBay, so it wasn't a great loss to upgrade to PCI cards..

"Stay up to date" and there was a ton of updates for XP and Internet Explorer in the early days of XP.
Then came the service pack 2, and finally service pack 3 which was around 400 MB to download and 45 minutes to install.And then 'monthly updates' .

'Safety Security and Privacy' now I wouldn't argue about that except for the 'automatically enabled' Messenger which gave anyone and everyone those annoying popups about Virus scanners and other SPAM.
Literally millions of people fell for the simple gag and only later realized they had been spoofed into buying an Antivirus program that was actually a virus itself.

Setup will complete in approximately 23 minutes was a standard 'estimate' on every computer I installed XP on.
A P4 would complete maybe in 23 minutes, yet any slower computer could be stuck for 30-40 minutes until completion.

And now you see the 'onscreen messages' start to repeat. On a modern computer you do not see them repeat.

Microsoft included the MSN Messenger into XP for communications, and digital cameras were definitely the 'in' thing in the XP era.

Arguably, the 'digital rights management' protocols that Microsoft 'stuck' every Windows user with was very controversial. Not everyone made movies..

Try the easiest Windows yet required you to 'unlearn' all your favorite tricks from the MS-DOS based windows.
Finding your way around inside of XP was a daily hassle until you became experienced (just try looking in Control Panel)..

Literally when XP was first available most of the computer users in the world were running some clunky old pentium 1 or 2 machines.
Moving was not a hassle as much as maybe getting people to secure their computers. By logging on as a user and not as an Admin..

We had a few 'major' virus catastrophies that mainly affected computers in Asia. Computer security became a huge business.
Broadband internet was probably 'our' most important concern, especially for 'gamers'. But it also helped for updating Windows.

In this era, we started to see the FBI get involved in computer virus cases, tracking down the originator of the virus.
You could imagine a few 'script kiddies' who got tangled into a legal bureacracy for simply trying to impress their friends.

But it had to be a secure feeling for anyone who turned on their computer only to find a virus had wiped out their operating system.
Or worse, had erased ALL their files.

From 12 minutes remaining down to 1 minute remaining in just one second.
We are skipping 12 pictures of messages we have seen before the conclude this essay.

We have completed the install and now we are rebooting our computer.. to the Welcome Screen of XP..

Arguably the style of XP was a vast improvement over the 'Color Schemes' and the 'Enable Web Effects' junk from Win98 and ME..

Here I can't remember if XP recognized my 3Com ISA (slot) network card, so we skip the registration for now..

I am only creating 1 user for this demonstration.. at right, the "Thank You" message..

The "Welcome" screen and the initial desktop..I found later in my Linux experiences that I really hate that black XP startup screen and the small 'progress bar' when i could be watching all the processe start up in a text mode style, instead..

The "Start" menu and the Tour, which I always cancelled and well maybe I watched it once or twice..

Now this is how i usually activated Windows, as the earlier screen would often give me a "incorrect key" message..but I am not connected so I had to select "Remind every few days"..
At right, the My Computer properties screen..

"Turn off your computer" and "Logging Off" ..

"Shutting Down" and if you are using an old AT style power supply, you get the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" screen.
And that is all................................
Windows XP was a great leap forward for most people, but a hassle for many.
Microsoft was starting to 'bloat out' their software, and after Vista they started to listen to people, and slim things down. Windows XP was not so bloated until you added SP 3.. but security and the era of when even a simple computer virus was considered terrorism was upon us. And there is no looking back.

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