Does Windows rot over time?

Actually, I was questioning why the swap file was being used with 2048MB of RAM in the system. Task Manager said there was considerable swapping going on, even with 1000MB+ free. Seems inefficient to me, that's all.

I've noticed that when I switched my motherboard....the drivers REALLY screwed up my system...and I ended up reformatting...it was ridiculous.

on a non oc'ed system ive never had to re-install unless i did an upgrade for someone.

its im my opinion if you keep it clean and run you check disk, defrag, AV, Etc..
it will treat you quite well for a long long time ..

cant really believe the gripes people have about it...
like it actually eats itself .... omg !!

Captain Newbie said:

Actually, I was questioning why the swap file was being used with 2048MB of RAM in the system. Task Manager said there was considerable swapping going on, even with 1000MB+ free. Seems inefficient to me, that's all.

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This even happens with my 1GB of memory. Even when I notice around 512MB free or so, I still hear the pagefile being used/accessed. This also might be poor programming on the 3rd party vendor and not necessarily Windows itself.

hey captain newbie ..

just curious to whether or not you manually set it or let windows manage ?

i may have to borrow my friends Microsoft Bible and toy with this..

only issues I've ever had with XP was due to overclocking and too many failures trying to find my max clocks. On my main system which isn't overclocked, XP is running on two years with no signs of getting old or rotten.

HousERaT said:

only issues I've ever had with XP was due to overclocking and too many failures trying to find my max clocks. On my main system which isn't overclocked, XP is running on two years with no signs of getting old or rotten.

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!! amen !!

Xtreme Barton said:

hey captain newbie ..

just curious to whether or not you manually set it or let windows manage ?

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I tend to let Windows manage it, since the OS _is_ supposed to be _good_ at managing memory.

I just hate the sound of disk thrashing... I think that it is important to minimize paging as much as possible, and that Windows does a poor job of it on machines with large amounts of memory.

Windows 98.....

Best version of windows made to the date. Why? Simply I had it for 7 years and only went threough 4 formats/reinstalls. It simply didn't "rot" then agian there isn't alot you can do/use with that version. BUt I see as newer and newer version come out they are getting sloppier and sloppier. More reinstalls are nessiary. I think the programing is jsut getting worse allowing windows to kill its self after a while.


voted for
1-4,6

I used to reformat monthly until the day that I found adaware/spybot and registry mechanic, now I only have to reformat due to failed overclocking. Oh and by the way another huge reason why windows go poop is due to porn, I can say that out of 10 computers that I fix at least five of them are running like crap because of people looking at porn.

Avg said:

I used to reformat monthly until the day that I found adaware/spybot and registry mechanic, now I only have to reformat due to failed overclocking. Oh and by the way another huge reason why windows go poop is due to porn, I can say that out of 10 computers that I fix at least five of them are running like crap because of people looking at porn.

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Yeah, don't you love working on someone's PC and finding that?

I dont see Windows as rotting as much as I see things done to it by the users. Those things cause it to "rot". I have been running this install of XP for over a year. My boot times are good. All benchies are favorable. I do keep all updates up to date. I think its an OS you must babysit to keep it tidy and happy. I do surf and play games. . install and uninstall software etc. I DO use 3rd party programs to insure things are installed and/or removed properly. Again though this is stuff the user must do and stay on top of. Windows isnt and never was an OS to just turn it on and go. Its not a refrigerator that you just power up and leave it to its devices. It must be maintained.
There are a number of things I would like to see happen before we move on to Vista. One being take some time and really test the new code. Make it efficient, secure and streamlined.(Yes Im wishing on a star here folks) Second, before adding NEW features, fix the bugs on the ones we already have!!! (Think Bill Gates will listen??) hahahaha

Z

Super nade i agree whole heartedly. My parents PC is behind a hardware firewall plus zomealarm, with norton corporate. I have to reformat every 4-6months becuase SOMETHING quit, its locking, its crashing etc...oh the latest, it doesnt print. Dont know why. Epson STylus 1280, and Stylus 5000..it jsut doesnt work. its supposeed to print to my old laserwritter, but it just prints garbage. Oh and ask it to tell you the ink levels, HAH!

this install has been together since early sept mind you.

They use mozilla, spybot, adaware. i maintain it daily. My fully planted aquarium requires less maintenence.

my bros PC, dually, winxp pro. we constantly render out Targa files for animations to separate harddrives. it cant take it, it just gets clogged, slow, etc.

Now me the token osx guy (yes of corse id show up on a thread like this!) has been running the same osx4 install on my main machine since july, and osx.2 on my beige since LAST june with no issues, but we wont go there

So i side with you linux users. Ive got a box running SuSE 9.1, ive just had no reasons to take it down and upgrade it...we leave it on to handle downloads, AIM all nighters, head our render servers (HTML based controls)

For what I do, I have never really had a problem with Windows.. I know it is a little more sensitive than Linux and so on, but I find that it's usually the user's fault for not knowing how to maintain a computer. I know that Windows is bloated and getting more and more bloated as it grows. IMHO the problem more or less lies in the users fridge/microwave expectation, which is plug and play and no upkeep. Download, install, uninstall, delete, create, delete, download some more, install and uninstall some more... In the end, the user's puter is bogged down with spyware, some viruses, a fragmented disk, and tons of unneeded registry entries and backround programs. I've had dual boot win98se/winxppro installed on a 550mhz puter at 512mb ram for about a year now, no problems. I've found the microsoft antispyware beta to be very handy. I use Free AVG, and Crap Cleaner, and defrag. I've never had any problems. The only time I had a problem was with my 98se and messing around with registry causing a vxd issue. I think microcrap is getting better and smarter (in a way). With Linux becoming more and more evolved and more Winblows apps compatible, Microsuck needs to get their act together if they want to keep customers. Anyways, got a class.. so thus ends my spiel.

MadSkillzMan said:

...Now me the token osx guy (yes of corse id show up on a thread like this!) has been running the same osx4 install on my main machine since july...

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Not to be argumentative, but July 13th, 2005 was the install date of my current xp home install... it gets gamed on everyday with driver changes and hardware changes to boot. It's on 18 hours a day (it'd be 24 hours but I sleep next to it). It's rock solid stable and is as fast as ever...

It all depends on the user.

Super Nade said:

One of the key assumptions I am making is that there we are quite intelligent and so, spyware/virii do not contribute to the issue at hand

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Poor assumption. Many of us are smart enough, but many of us who think we are smart enough are not.

Mdameron, i agree, it just seems though your tasks that require large files, moving, long hard stress (RENDERS in my case) isnt XPs thing.

me im happy with my choice. mock all you like i stand by it. im sure you die hard gentoo users are the same

Let me preface this by saying that I am pretty much a hardcore linux user.
And I voted for rotten os, of course.

Nonetheless, I have used almost every version of Windows since 3.0 and to set the record straight, I really do not entirely believe this.

I have never had anything but problems with Windows XP, including a laptop that had an O.E.M. version of XP Pro from the factory.
I blame these problems largely on just a few issues:
automatic system configuration (network settings mainly, but not entirely.)
the wide range of hardware that windows is EXPECTED to work flawlessly on, or "it sucks" is heard.

It all depends on the user.

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I really don't think this is entirely accurate, although it DOES have validity for any operating system or other software.

My biggest complaint with Windows is the difficulty in turning OFF the automagic controls that can cause problems, and that is one of the main reasons I quit using it. With Linux I can choose a distro that does everything for me or one that requires complete manual control by default. And I can modify either to gain exactly the amount of control I want.
But I digress, and I apologize.

In my experience (limited to a few dozen XP machines) WinXP can be fairly stable long term on SOME hardware. Use of MS Certified drivers helps with this, but some hardware just does not seem to work as smoothly with Windows as could be desired.

MadSkillzMan said:

Mdameron, i agree, it just seems though your tasks that require large files, moving, long hard stress (RENDERS in my case) isnt XPs thing.

me im happy with my choice. mock all you like i stand by it. im sure you die hard gentoo users are the same

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I'm not mocking you at all... in all fairness I would LOVE to have an OSX rig... a few people in some of my classes make me soooo jealous with their powerbooks.

I do use ArcGIS on this rig, and it's a pretty hefty program too. It might not be as big as rendering or Photoshop... but it deals with some large files and uses an easy 300Mb or RAM by itself...