Which Windows XP Newsgroup?

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
[...]

(Isn't it fun how the terminology has evolved? The origin of the term
"crash" was indeed a hardware failure, when the "low-flying" head of a
disc drive actually crashed into the surface!)

Yep, uploading and downloading has a completely different reference now too.

On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:04:32 +0000, Ed ex@directory wrote:

I know that this is a Windows 98 newsgroup and I have found massive help
here in the past.

But my daughter has problems with her Windows XP . What would be a
comparable group to this one where I could get similar expert help on XP?

There are so many XP groups about and I can't work out which might be best.

Ed

I use microsoft.public.windowsxp.general mostly, and also
alt.comp.os.windows-xp and
microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support

I'm pretty happy with the answers there, and once in a while, I can
even give some help myself.

Someone suggested the microsoft web forums, so I thought I should
really look at them before I replied to you. They have all the
problems I expected them to.

First, unless one has a T1 line, response is nowhere near as quick as
even a slow newserver.
Second, one can only have as many positions as one is willing to keep
tabs open.
Third, one still has to maintain his newsreader and news server to
discuss the many topics other than microsoft products.
Fourth, there are some topics actually related to MS products which
have always been handled better on other than MS newsgroups.

Fifth, one can't crosspost on the webforums, so if you have a topic
that concerns XP and viruses both, or XP and harddrives or other
external storage, or XP and and movie editing, or XP and the English
language, you can't post to two newsgroups like you can on Usenet.
Your daughter's problem relates to XP and Vista, but I'll bet there is
no way to crosspost your question to both XP and Vista groups. On
Usenet that is easy. But it's worse than that:

Sixth, I'm sure people read some threads but not all threads on the
web forums, With a newsreader, one can take advantage of its batch
capabilities. Even if one never goes off-line, the fact that news
readers were built as off-line readers means you can get 100 or 1000
posts at one time, read as much or as little of as many threads as you
want. It takes no time to retrieve posts because you can be reading
one while the dl'ing takes place, and it takes less than a tenth of a
second to go to the body of a post from the previous post or the
TOContents.

Seventh, you can leave the posts that you've read marked as read and
the ones that you haven't marked as unread. And you can take ones
you've read and mark them as unread so you will be likely to read them
again. Do the MS webforums have anything like even part of that? I
don't think so.

Eighth, you can forward posts to friends who you think will find them
relevant without giving out your friends' email addresses to
Microsoft.

Ninth, you have to register to reply to a post. I've registered
enough already to suit me for the rest of my life. They don't need to
know even my alias addresses and names.

Tenth, do they have any archive search facility that comes anywhere
near as good as groups.google advanced search? Do they have an
archive search at all, or do they depend on google and yahoo
websearches?

Eleventh, they'll probably arbitrarily close threads after a certain
amount of time. Threads are never closed on Usenet, and though the
same people might not be reading when you reply, we all know that some
people have been reading the same ngs for 10, 15 years or more. So
there's a good chance they'll see it or others who read the original
thread will.

Twelfth, people with memories better than mine can keep track of who
knows what he's talking about all the time, some of the itme, or
never. This one might be true on a webforum but it's so much harder
to read them that people will read fewer posts in fewer threads.

Thirteenth, the signal to noise ration on MSweb will either be the
same as here soon, or they'll have some sort of moderation that will
delay posts and stifle interchanges, and will exclude other posts
entirely that we want to see.

I think I've left out a few disadvantages of any webforum, including
the MS webforums, but 11 or 12 should be enough. Given all this, I
have to wonder why MS wanted to stop participating in Usenet and go to
a fully-controlled web forum. I think whatever reason there was is
likely to benefit MS and not us.


I see that you use giganews and thunderbird, so I don't have to give a
lecture about how much better it is to use a news reader instead of
trying to read news on the web.

I use Agent. I'm not sure if recent versions have a free version or
only a 30 day trial version, but I think it is worth the money, so I
paid for version 6 but still use version 1.9 from 2002 98% of the
time.

On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:06:07 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:04:32 +0000, Ed ex@directory wrote:

I know that this is a Windows 98 newsgroup and I have found massive help
here in the past.

But my daughter has problems with her Windows XP . What would be a
comparable group to this one where I could get similar expert help on XP?

There are so many XP groups about and I can't work out which might be best.

Ed

I use microsoft.public.windowsxp.general mostly, and also
alt.comp.os.windows-xp and
microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support

I'm pretty happy with the answers there, and once in a while, I can
even give some help myself.

Someone suggested the microsoft web forums, so I thought I should
really look at them before I replied to you. They have all the
problems I expected them to.

First, unless one has a T1 line, response is nowhere near as quick as
even a slow newserver.
Second, one can only have as many positions as one is willing to keep
tabs open.
Third, one still has to maintain his newsreader and news server to
discuss the many topics other than microsoft products.
Fourth, there are some topics actually related to MS products which
have always been handled better on other than MS newsgroups.

Fifth, one can't crosspost on the webforums, so if you have a topic
that concerns XP and viruses both, or XP and harddrives or other
external storage, or XP and and movie editing, or XP and the English
language, you can't post to two newsgroups like you can on Usenet.
Your daughter's problem relates to XP and Vista, but I'll bet there is
no way to crosspost your question to both XP and Vista groups. On
Usenet that is easy. But it's worse than that:

Sixth, I'm sure people read some threads but not all threads on the
web forums, With a newsreader, one can take advantage of its batch
capabilities. Even if one never goes off-line, the fact that news
readers were built as off-line readers means you can get 100 or 1000
posts at one time, read as much or as little of as many threads as you
want. It takes no time to retrieve posts because you can be reading
one while the dl'ing takes place, and it takes less than a tenth of a
second to go to the body of a post from the previous post or the
TOContents.

Seventh, you can leave the posts that you've read marked as read and
the ones that you haven't marked as unread. And you can take ones
you've read and mark them as unread so you will be likely to read them
again. Do the MS webforums have anything like even part of that? I
don't think so.

Eighth, you can forward posts to friends who you think will find them
relevant without giving out your friends' email addresses to
Microsoft.

Ninth, you have to register to reply to a post. I've registered
enough already to suit me for the rest of my life. They don't need to
know even my alias addresses and names.

Tenth, do they have any archive search facility that comes anywhere
near as good as groups.google advanced search? Do they have an
archive search at all, or do they depend on google and yahoo
websearches?

Eleventh, they'll probably arbitrarily close threads after a certain
amount of time. Threads are never closed on Usenet, and though the
same people might not be reading when you reply, we all know that some
people have been reading the same ngs for 10, 15 years or more. So
there's a good chance they'll see it or others who read the original
thread will.

Twelfth, people with memories better than mine can keep track of who
knows what he's talking about all the time, some of the itme, or
never. This one might be true on a webforum but it's so much harder
to read them that people will read fewer posts in fewer threads.

Thirteenth, the signal to noise ration on MSweb will either be the
same as here soon, or they'll have some sort of moderation that will
delay posts and stifle interchanges, and will exclude other posts
entirely that we want to see.

Fourteenth, they have ADVERTISING!!!!! Lots of ads. And by no means
just from microsoft. Incredible.

Fifteenth, even not counting the advertising, they have lots of white
space on the page. If I want white space, I'll leave a piece of blank
paper on my desk. I like paragraphs and even blank lines between
pargraphs, but they have all that and loads of other white space.
They get hardly anything on a screen.

Sixteenth, besides the small amount to read at one time, it will make
replying harder I'm sure, because one won't be able to see 32 lines at
one time like I can now, maybe 20 lines that I'm replying to and 12
lines of my own. I'll have to be scrolling up and down all the time
to find facts I want to address in my reply.

I knew I left out reasons and there are still more that I haven't
thought of.


I think I've left out a few disadvantages of any webforum, including
the MS webforums, but 11 or 12 should be enough. Given all this, I
have to wonder why MS wanted to stop participating in Usenet and go to
a fully-controlled web forum. I think whatever reason there was is
likely to benefit MS and not us.


I see that you use giganews and thunderbird, so I don't have to give a
lecture about how much better it is to use a news reader instead of
trying to read news on the web.

I use Agent. I'm not sure if recent versions have a free version or
only a 30 day trial version, but I think it is worth the money, so I
paid for version 6 but still use version 1.9 from 2002 98% of the
time.

John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/4/2010 6:23 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Tim Slattery wrote:
"Bill in wrote:


I'm having a senior moment, and am trying to recall what it was about
Win9x
that predisposed it to this behavior, so much more than XP (which as
you
say, rarely crashes from most user processes). What does XP (and later)
have different in its design that eliminates so much of that problem?

Just that user processes in XP are *much* better isolated from the OS
and from each other than they were in Win9x.

But generally how was that accomplished?

Processes have a private 2GB address space where they are isolated but
on Windows 98 they also have the 2 to 3GB shared address space where key
parts of the Win16 code, which Windows 98 still uses, is also stored
along with DLLs and other shared objects, any errant or rogue
application can easily trash memory in this 1GB shared arena and bring
the whole system down.

This "address space" you're talking about must be in reference to virtual
memory and the swap file, and not RAM memory, since many systems don't have
that much RAM. (When you say address space to me I think of the address
lines between a CPU and RAM (or ROM) memory, so I'm getting a bit confused
here, but presumably it's the virtual memory and some so called "virtual
address" mapping you're referring to.

Hmmm, I also wonder how the choice of 2 GB address space arose.

On NT systems user processes have a private 2GB address space and no
shared address space.

Presumably as opposed to Win9x systems. So I guess you're saying that each
process is "mapped" to some separate "virtual memory location" in XP, but
not Win9x, although I'm not aware of basically how that is done, in either
case.

To make better use of RAM, processes can share
DLLs and objects so these shared objects are only loaded into memory
once but each process uses its own private address space to map to the
shared objects, if the application mucks up these objects in its private
address space it doesn't affect other processes. There is no shared
address space on NT systems, each process is isolated in its private
space.

It sounds pretty amazing that this is even able to be done from a technical
viewpoint, at least from what little I understand about this. And the
reason they couldn't do this for Win9x systems was due to the legacy of 16
bit code and compatibility with DOS?

In message , John John - MVP
writes:
[]
I never lose data with Win98.

Anyone who has any considerable amount of experience around different
computer systems will refute your claim, I have seen more crashes and
data loss on W9x systems than I have ever seen on any NT system. W9x
was/is notorious for crashes, it can be completely crashed by almost
any user process, something that is very rarely seen on NT systems, you
sneeze and W9x crashes. We simply refused to have any W9x machines in
our business environment, they are plainly too fragile for business use.

John

We use a couple of W98 systems for the testing of advanced computer
equipment for the RAF; they're usually left running all the time. I
think I've seem a DOS screen on them once, and that was after a power
cut; they're extremely reliable. (Well, parts of the interface circuitry
isn't, and one of them sometimes is a bit reluctant to see its CD drive,
but neither of those problems are due to using '98.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

It was kind of Wagnerian in that it was totally for blokes, but it didn't have
difficult woodwind passages. Stuart Maconie (on "Tommy") in Radio Times, 14-20
November 2009.

In message , mm
writes:
On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 00:06:07 -0400, mm
wrote:
[]
Excellent set of reasons why forums (in general) are inferior to
newsgroups; saved for reference. Thanks both.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

It was kind of Wagnerian in that it was totally for blokes, but it didn't have
difficult woodwind passages. Stuart Maconie (on "Tommy") in Radio Times, 14-20
November 2009.

"Bill in Co" wrote:


Processes have a private 2GB address space where they are isolated but
on Windows 98 they also have the 2 to 3GB shared address space where key
parts of the Win16 code, which Windows 98 still uses, is also stored
along with DLLs and other shared objects, any errant or rogue
application can easily trash memory in this 1GB shared arena and bring
the whole system down.

This "address space" you're talking about must be in reference to virtual
memory and the swap file, and not RAM memory, since many systems don't have
that much RAM.

Absolutely right. Each process runs in its own 4GB virtual memory
space, of which 2GB is reserved for the OS and 2GB is available to the
application. That has nothing to do with physical RAM. Physical RAM is
managed as 4KB "pages". Pages from many different virtual spaces will
be in various places in physical RAM all the time. Other pages will be
on the swap file. The virtual memory system has to keep track of all
this, bring pages into RAM from the swap file when they're needed and
decide which pages in RAM can be swapped out to make room for them.


On NT systems user processes have a private 2GB address space and no
shared address space.

Presumably as opposed to Win9x systems. So I guess you're saying that each
process is "mapped" to some separate "virtual memory location" in XP, but
not Win9x, although I'm not aware of basically how that is done, in either
case.

The workings of virtual memory are very complex. There is
functionality built into the CPU to facilitate this, the NT line of
systems (NT, Win2000, XP, Vista, Win7) always made better use of it
than Win9x. That's what being completely 32-bit will do for you.

--
Tim Slattery

http://members.cox.net/slatteryt

On 11/5/2010 4:38 AM, Bill in Co wrote:
John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/4/2010 6:23 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Tim Slattery wrote:
"Bill in wrote:


I'm having a senior moment, and am trying to recall what it was about
Win9x
that predisposed it to this behavior, so much more than XP (which as
you
say, rarely crashes from most user processes). What does XP (and later)
have different in its design that eliminates so much of that problem?

Just that user processes in XP are *much* better isolated from the OS
and from each other than they were in Win9x.

But generally how was that accomplished?

Processes have a private 2GB address space where they are isolated but
on Windows 98 they also have the 2 to 3GB shared address space where key
parts of the Win16 code, which Windows 98 still uses, is also stored
along with DLLs and other shared objects, any errant or rogue
application can easily trash memory in this 1GB shared arena and bring
the whole system down.

This "address space" you're talking about must be in reference to virtual
memory and the swap file, and not RAM memory, since many systems don't have
that much RAM. (When you say address space to me I think of the address
lines between a CPU and RAM (or ROM) memory, so I'm getting a bit confused
here, but presumably it's the virtual memory and some so called "virtual
address" mapping you're referring to.

Yes, for all intents and purposes no application or executive operating
system function ever deals directly with RAM, they are given a flat,
linear Virtual Address space and the Memory Manager looks after the
rest, it translates the virtual space to physical memory locations.
Each application has its own private 2GB address space, in theory you
could have 5 hungry applications started and have all 5 of them making
full use of their address space, the Memory Manager will make use of the
pagefile to satisfy the demand and give the illusion of nearly unlimited
RAM to the applications.



Hmmm, I also wonder how the choice of 2 GB address space arose.

Well, the 32-bit memory manager can address a 4GB space and I guess
someone decided to cut in in half, 2GB for the user processes or
applications and 2GB for other things.



On NT systems user processes have a private 2GB address space and no
shared address space.

Presumably as opposed to Win9x systems. So I guess you're saying that each
process is "mapped" to some separate "virtual memory location" in XP, but
not Win9x, although I'm not aware of basically how that is done, in either
case.

W9x systems also have a 32-bit memory manager and they too can address a
4GB space and each application on W9x also has its private 2GB address
space. Applications use the 0 to 2GB space, each and every one is given
their own space and they don't know that other applications have a
seemingly identical space, 10 apps can have a private 0 to 2GB space,
the memory manager uses tables to keep track of all of this. Where
things differ is with the 2 to 4GB address space, on W9x systems the
system has exclusive use of the upper 3GB to 4GB space (1GB) for its own
use, the remaining 1GB (2 to 3GB) is a shared memory area, shared by key
OS code and DLLs and accessible by any applications, sort of a free for
all, it's in this arena that rogue or misbehaved applications usually
trash the system and bring it to a halt. Think of it as kids playing in
a sand box, this is my corner and that is your corner, the rest of the
box is for both of us. All is going well in our little corners of the
sandbox until I decide to reroute the main road in the common area of
the box and that throws a kibosh on your plan... a fight breaks out then
one of us has a fit and kicks and destroys half of the common play
area... a BSOD in the making!

Windows NT systems do not have this shared address space and they do not
permit applications to 'play' in the OS private space. With the use of
various boot.ini switches the breakup of the 4GB space can be tuned to
give applications a bigger share of the space, the /3GB switch is the
most commonly known switch, it will give applications a 3GB address
space and cut the OS space to 1GB, the OS space is still off limits to
applications. Other switches are more granular so, for example, the
space could be adjusted to 2.5GB for applications and 1.5GB for the NT
executive.



To make better use of RAM, processes can share
DLLs and objects so these shared objects are only loaded into memory
once but each process uses its own private address space to map to the
shared objects, if the application mucks up these objects in its private
address space it doesn't affect other processes. There is no shared
address space on NT systems, each process is isolated in its private
space.

It sounds pretty amazing that this is even able to be done from a technical
viewpoint, at least from what little I understand about this.

Yes, it's quite amazing that the memory manager can keep track of all of
this and make it all work!


And the reason they couldn't do this for Win9x systems was due to the legacy of 16
bit code and compatibility with DOS?

I'm not 100% sure but yes, 16-bit applications use memory differently
and on Windows 9x they use this 2 to 3GB space, on NT systems 16-bit
applications run inside a virtual DOS machine (NTVDM) which is really
just another user process with its own private address space, so DOS
applications are also isolated from each other as well as from other
processes or executive code. It's just the way it is, Windows 9x was
built atop of DOS and it is not a 100% 32-bit operating system, it a
hybrid of sorts and some of the core components still use 16-bit code.
'Some' people who post to this group are in denial and they refuse to
admit or understand that W9x still makes use of 16-bit code. Windows NT
on the other hand was built from the ground up as a pure 32-bit
operating system so the designers could do away with 16-bit requirements
for OS code. Of course, being that there was a huge base of 16-bit
applications in use (for most users in the early 90's that is almost all
that existed) it was an imperative design goal that NT be capable of
running these 16-bit applications... but that didn't mean that the
operating system had to run on 16-bit code. It's like building a new
house as opposed to adding to an old one, in a remodel you have some
fairly unforgiving constraints, in a new build you can pretty well
design everything to your liking.

This might be helpful:

INFO: Overview of the Windows 95 Virtual Address Space Layout
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/125691

John

John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/5/2010 4:38 AM, Bill in Co wrote:
John John - MVP wrote:
On 11/4/2010 6:23 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
Tim Slattery wrote:
"Bill in wrote:


I'm having a senior moment, and am trying to recall what it was about
Win9x
that predisposed it to this behavior, so much more than XP (which as
you
say, rarely crashes from most user processes). What does XP (and
later)
have different in its design that eliminates so much of that problem?

Just that user processes in XP are *much* better isolated from the OS
and from each other than they were in Win9x.

But generally how was that accomplished?

Processes have a private 2GB address space where they are isolated but
on Windows 98 they also have the 2 to 3GB shared address space where key
parts of the Win16 code, which Windows 98 still uses, is also stored
along with DLLs and other shared objects, any errant or rogue
application can easily trash memory in this 1GB shared arena and bring
the whole system down.

This "address space" you're talking about must be in reference to virtual
memory and the swap file, and not RAM memory, since many systems don't
have
that much RAM. (When you say address space to me I think of the address
lines between a CPU and RAM (or ROM) memory, so I'm getting a bit
confused
here, but presumably it's the virtual memory and some so called "virtual
address" mapping you're referring to.

Yes, for all intents and purposes no application or executive operating
system function ever deals directly with RAM, they are given a flat,
linear Virtual Address space and the Memory Manager looks after the
rest, it translates the virtual space to physical memory locations.
Each application has its own private 2GB address space, in theory you
could have 5 hungry applications started and have all 5 of them making
full use of their address space, the Memory Manager will make use of the
pagefile to satisfy the demand and give the illusion of nearly unlimited
RAM to the applications.



Hmmm, I also wonder how the choice of 2 GB address space arose.

Well, the 32-bit memory manager can address a 4GB space and I guess
someone decided to cut in in half, 2GB for the user processes or
applications and 2GB for other things.



On NT systems user processes have a private 2GB address space and no
shared address space.

Presumably as opposed to Win9x systems. So I guess you're saying that
each
process is "mapped" to some separate "virtual memory location" in XP, but
not Win9x, although I'm not aware of basically how that is done, in
either
case.

W9x systems also have a 32-bit memory manager and they too can address a
4GB space and each application on W9x also has its private 2GB address
space. Applications use the 0 to 2GB space, each and every one is given
their own space and they don't know that other applications have a
seemingly identical space, 10 apps can have a private 0 to 2GB space,
the memory manager uses tables to keep track of all of this. Where
things differ is with the 2 to 4GB address space, on W9x systems the
system has exclusive use of the upper 3GB to 4GB space (1GB) for its own
use, the remaining 1GB (2 to 3GB) is a shared memory area, shared by key
OS code and DLLs and accessible by any applications, sort of a free for
all, it's in this arena that rogue or misbehaved applications usually
trash the system and bring it to a halt. Think of it as kids playing in
a sand box, this is my corner and that is your corner, the rest of the
box is for both of us. All is going well in our little corners of the
sandbox until I decide to reroute the main road in the common area of
the box and that throws a kibosh on your plan... a fight breaks out then
one of us has a fit and kicks and destroys half of the common play
area... a BSOD in the making!

Windows NT systems do not have this shared address space and they do not
permit applications to 'play' in the OS private space. With the use of
various boot.ini switches the breakup of the 4GB space can be tuned to
give applications a bigger share of the space, the /3GB switch is the
most commonly known switch, it will give applications a 3GB address
space and cut the OS space to 1GB, the OS space is still off limits to
applications. Other switches are more granular so, for example, the
space could be adjusted to 2.5GB for applications and 1.5GB for the NT
executive.



To make better use of RAM, processes can share
DLLs and objects so these shared objects are only loaded into memory
once but each process uses its own private address space to map to the
shared objects, if the application mucks up these objects in its private
address space it doesn't affect other processes. There is no shared
address space on NT systems, each process is isolated in its private
space.

It sounds pretty amazing that this is even able to be done from a
technical
viewpoint, at least from what little I understand about this.

Yes, it's quite amazing that the memory manager can keep track of all of
this and make it all work!


And the reason they couldn't do this for Win9x systems was due to the
legacy
of 16 bit code and compatibility with DOS?

I'm not 100% sure but yes, 16-bit applications use memory differently
and on Windows 9x they use this 2 to 3GB space, on NT systems 16-bit
applications run inside a virtual DOS machine (NTVDM) which is really
just another user process with its own private address space, so DOS
applications are also isolated from each other as well as from other
processes or executive code. It's just the way it is, Windows 9x was
built atop of DOS and it is not a 100% 32-bit operating system, it a
hybrid of sorts and some of the core components still use 16-bit code.
'Some' people who post to this group are in denial and they refuse to
admit or understand that W9x still makes use of 16-bit code. Windows NT
on the other hand was built from the ground up as a pure 32-bit
operating system so the designers could do away with 16-bit requirements
for OS code. Of course, being that there was a huge base of 16-bit
applications in use (for most users in the early 90's that is almost all
that existed) it was an imperative design goal that NT be capable of
running these 16-bit applications... but that didn't mean that the
operating system had to run on 16-bit code. It's like building a new
house as opposed to adding to an old one, in a remodel you have some
fairly unforgiving constraints, in a new build you can pretty well
design everything to your liking.

This might be helpful:

INFO: Overview of the Windows 95 Virtual Address Space Layout
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/125691

John

Thanks to both you and Tim for all the info on this. It's all pretty
interesting, and quite complex.