Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (
More info?)
"Phillips" <afn18721@afn.org> wrote in message
news:OM5G3slPFHA.3076@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> There are differences in the ways people use computers: some use them for
> mundane tasks such as light word processing, email, Internet surfing and
> thus are happy with the default OEM OS. Others need to aqueeze any bit of
> performance from their machines for games, software testing, video
> processing, exotic hardware etc. For the later, a customized XP Pro
> installation is beneficial.
Not really. It just complicates matters, in some instances immensely and
unnecessarily.
Besides that doesn't address the issue the OP is having with hardware and
application interaction issues. Must stablize the patform *before*
"tweaking" it to the point of unusablility.
> To keep it short, there are quantifiable benefits (speed, for ex) that
> justify (albeit subjectively to some extent) installation of the latest
> software, drivers, firmware, tweaks, partitioning strategies etc.
Partitioning always negatively impacts performance. There are no exceptions.
This has to do with forcing increased actuator movement to span empty areas
that must be left between partitions which precludes any oppurtunistic data
placement as a result of defragging. Allowing the system to clump and defrag
the data according to usage patterns tends to avoid the issue of arbitrarily
forcing a whole lot of empty space between heavily accessed data which
generally results in large scale actuator movement. The only way to
micro-manage data without negatively impacting performance is to add
physical drives.
At best, with partioning, if properly managed, you take a hit in performance
up front and mitigate the effect of fragmentation over time, although with
NTFS even that's no longer the case. The rules for FAT simply do not apply
to NTFS. And that's something that some folks still haven't realized yet.
Attempting to tune NTFS HD structure based on the behavour of FAT is like
training for a marathon vs. training to sprint.
Be wary as well of categorially classifying all "performance" tweaks as
univerally acceptable on all platforms. "Tweaking" is robbing Peter to pay
Paul. If Peter can stand the loss, then there can be an overall benefit.
Problem is that it's not unusal for Peter to start getting grumpy if down
right cranky.
> Generally, enthusiast users build their own dedicated (games, multimedia)
> machines and rarely use XP Home OEM's.
That last statement is categorically false. ;-)
I know of a lot of people that will save the difference in cost between He
and Pro and put it in the hardware where it does more good. They also buy
off the shelf.
There is no performance difference between HE and Pro. The only difference
is enterprise level security and networking requirements. Actually, I can
make a case that HE is the prefered platform for those wanting to "tweak"
into oblivion. Pro has additional protocol and security overhead that
doesn't exist in HE, therefore shorter path lengths for some functions which
leads to better performance on HE. To flip that around, in no instance does
HE have a longer code path than Pro for any function. Nor is HE any less
"tweakable".
--
Walter Clayton
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.