Re: Fw: new pc finally arrived and have to make decisions-help

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "Avrom Fischer"  on Sun, 18 Dec 2005
03:15:57 -0200


> Robert I wonder since when I write papers that go out of my office, it is very
> very rare that I go out of dos and my dos sessions in such situations last
> several hours what is the drawback to using a dos boot disk to ensure extra dos
> stability since I do not need to access another operating system

Because it's just unnecessary. Extra work. Stability is not an issue; XP is
rock stable. It seems to me that you are depriving yourself of possibilities
by limiting yourself to DOS and a single session. Unless you have extra
computers, of course, with multitasking OpSys (like XP) running... It's almost
unimaginable to me that you have no need to fetch Email, check a fact on the
web, do research, Lex-Nex, whatever.

XP is fine. Win2K happens to run DOS apps better, but... whatever you're
comfortable with. XP is just Win2K with an Apple interface (and a couple of
interesting possibilities for screen fonts, and a ton of security making
incessant noise, bugging you with prompts and suggestions and tips and assorted
garbage, plus frequent updates). Win2K leaves you alone, lets you work. XP is
meant for people who come from 9x -- a very mixed bag. Lots of handholding and
patronization. 2K was developed for prior NT users, who were always treated
more like adults. It's a shock to go from 2K to XP! A real shock. It's like
a giant step down.

WP printing is the best, period -- your graphics friends are right. Conversion
from XyWrite to WP is not the best, but you must be satisfied. Still, XyWrite
printing with Postscript comes pretty close, and I very much doubt that your
clients would notice any difference -- you need very good eyes, and frankly I
discount looks in deference to words. Good looks are all too often used to
mask bad writing.

NTFS is a much stronger file system than any form of FAT. It resists
fragmentation. It is generally faster -- with large files, MUCH faster. It is
much harder to trash an NTFS disk. It's self-monitoring for integrity, and
fixes its own problems. But, the drawback is, that if you have a system crash
and need to recover data with a Win98 boot disk, you're out of luck. There is
only one installable NTFS file system driver for DOS, and it is expensive
(WinInternals' NTFSDOS, in their AdminPak). Another powerful consideration is
to be able to back up and restore your Windows registry easily; that is best
done if the OpSys is on a FAT32 disk -- hence my recommendations earlier.

Look, I don't know what "Windows challenged" means. You learn, that's all.
You think that most users are any different? They're not. Better to get handy
with it than not.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------