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I would use Win7 if I absolutely needed recent software that cannot be replaced with an older version, or if the system in question didn't have all drivers (excluding devices without practical use such as 'system management bus', some embedded soundcard on a video adapter, etc). I haven't followed your other threads. If your system is old and has had software added and removed many times in its life, reinstalling XP or 2003 on it would speed it up just the same as installing Win7 would. I think the impression that the latest OS is much fast is mostly based on an experience while the new OS is fresh, and not yet bogged down by fragmentation and bloated applications. If the new OS starts to boot slowly, maybe you can pay attention if that happens after the installation of a particular driver or application, as you add them one at a time. Then find an alternative.

I finally had a chance to test this function. It works as I expected. The triangle is also surprisingly precisely drawn/hinted. Firefox itself doesn't appear to be using FontLink (a different triangle is substituted).

Look the actual NIC chip up by its Vendor and Device ID, which you may be able to see on the BIOS POST screen or using AIDA64/Everest. For example, 11ab 4362 -> Marvell Gigabit Ethernet Controller. The modern chips are usually too small to read the markings on them without holding the board up close. The Windows driver might report the device confusingly as a "family controller", but will usually say if it's Fast or Gigabit "family". Verify that the Speed & Duplex setting in the adapter's Advanced Settings is set to Auto-Sense or Auto-Negotiation to match the setting on the unmanaged switch on the other end. Try disabling Green Ethernet or EEE settings if they are present. If both of PC2 and PC2-Alternate are verified Gigabit capable, connect them (or another computer) together with a short known-good patch cable to rule out a fault in the cable (a pair that's unused for Fast Ethernet). You didn't give a report on what the Alternate's link speed or throughput were. A new PCI-E network would only cost around 14 euros. If Gigabit link comes up, test throughout with FileZilla FTP Server/Client instead of Windows file sharing, which is slower.

The Users control panel has a dumbed down "web" style and seems to be ahead of its time. The older Users dialog is still present in XP and can be called via this command: rundll32.exe netplwiz.dll,UsersRunDll But the Management Console works too.

Looks like I was wrong about there not being a character substitution in Windows 2000/XP. There is at least one practical mechanism called "Font Linking". It doesn't work automatically like in web browsers though. You have to manually specify the list of fonts to fall back to. A configuration change like that might require a reboot to apply. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontLink\SystemLinkType: REG_MULTI_SZName: Tahomal_10646.ttf,Lucida Sans Unicodeanother.ttf,Another FontI didn't mean that you should accept the font that Microsoft Word shows as the first option. Rather, go to Format > Font or an equivalent dialog, and cycle through all your fonts to see which ones look good at low point sizes, have the symbol and aren't too large.

25B6; BLACK RIGHT-POINTING TRIANGLE The fonts on my system that have this symbol are: Kepler Std Kozuka Mincho Pro Lucida Sans Unicode * Minion Pro Utopia Std All except one are Adobe OpenType PostScript fonts. Browsers will usually replace missing symbols on a character (firefox) or paragraph element (opera) basis from all installed fonts. I think Opera holds configuration for Unicode Character Ranges somehwere and uses that. Firefox can switch fonts on literally every symbol. If you have a webpage with normal text and one Japanese symbol, that one symbol might get pulled from another font, not excplitly declared on the webpage. The remainder of the paragraph after this symbol might be shown using that foreign font as well. I don't know if WinNT 6.1 also does this. But WinXP most certainly does not. I imagine looking up every character into a table of replacements is a very slow process. Especially since Unicode is quite bloated with funny symbols. The symbol only shows up on the Windows title bar if I choose a font which has this 25B6 in it. You can copy-paste this character into common Unicode capable software like Microsoft Word and browse your list of fonts to see which one has it. ▶

TL/DR: Yes. No. No. I am using Windows XP Service Pack 1 on my somewhat aged Conroe-class computer, which, believe or not, serves and my main computer, and XP with SP3 on my other computer based on the Intel B75 platform. I do not feel a need to update these systems, which are stable, and I do not intend to load any more post-SP3 updates on new Windows installations if/when I make them, unless there is a specific problem that can be solved by replacing one or a few system files. Loading numerous updates onto a customized installation with 3rd party components (drivers) is asking for trouble. It may be that an update fixes what Microsoft perceives to be a defect or vulnerability, but which isn't one actually (like the half-open connections limit). If a service pack, analogous to the Unofficial Service Pack for Windows 98SE, gets released, I'll give that a try. I do not intend to install any update that brings Microsoft bloatware components like MSIE, WMP or Net Framework, which are not need most of the time, and would defeat the purpose of using WinXP in the first place, a systme with small footprint on disk and memory. It would be awesome to have a universal "big hard drive" patch or USB3 drivers (which I do not have on my B75 system). So far I have not had much trouble using recent software on my systems. Most programs do nowadays require at least SP2 and sometimes SP3. But I always try to use the oldest version that still satisfies my requirements, as they tend to use less memory. When downloading software, I look over the version archive, paying attention to when the installation package has significantly increased in size. If I don't see a solid, practical justification for it, I get the previous version, which is usually compatible with more OS versions, old or new. Some software still have separate XP builds, or alternate builds with a lower version of MSVC. I get those. They work just fine on Vista/Seven usually. Older versions often get pulled from author's web sites or made very difficult to locate. Whenever I download an installation package, I always save it to disk, renamed with the full title of the product, its version and required platform (Win2k, XPSP2, etc.) For example, WinMTR (Matt's traceroute) v0.8 - 262,144 bytes, WinMTR v0.92 - 1,783,296 bytes. Improvements: advertisement for AppNor, requires XP SP2 or later. As for browsers, I use Opera 12.11, Firefox 27, and Opera 19 (rebranded Chromium -> "Opium"). Firefox and Opium have since been updated, but so far most sites that I need work just fine in these older browsers. What is a major version of those browsers today, is actualy a minor point-release. There are only 2 browsers to choose from today: Firefox and Chromium. Each have several flavors with mostly superficial differences, which are a matter of taste. Opium doesn't embed itself as deeply into the system as Google Chrome does. The installation package can be completely downloaded, and automatic updates can be disabled. Opera used to be a separate browser until last year, but was discontinued. I will continue using Opera's POP3 mail client. I haven't seriously used Internet Explorer past version 6. My XP systems have MSIE6 installed. Some CHM help files appear broken with this version, as do other software with embedded web content. But software that loads "media-rich" webpages onto its interface is usually replaced with faster, more stable secure alternatives. To access my MikroTik router I use its "proprietary" Windows GUI "Winbox" or the telnet client included with it. The version I have installed right now (6.10) runs on Windows 98 just fine, except that its icons with alpha channel show corrupted. But it's possible to use an old computer to manage routers in an imergency. This beats the "cross-platformness" of most Web UIs.

Is ClearType ON in the second example where we can't see any taskbar buttons? Well, the control panel only affects 3D applications/games and video. Drawing type with accelerable, resizable textures is a new school thing and I don't believe is present in XP in any form. To my eye, it looks like the "choppy" text sample might be overdrawn two or more times for whatever tecnical reason. (One instance of "Standard"-oversampled text drawn directly on top of another copy, which causes an increase in font weight.) And this isn't happening with the other driver. My guessing might not be a technically accurate. That is how it looks. I sometimes see this happening in software not very compatible with anti-aliased text, when moving windows around or making selections. Previously drawn pixels with partial coverage get left on screen, then new text gets drawn again over them, which causes a build-up of a dark border around text characters, until something is done that causes a complete refresh of the screen. Such as when a window is drawn outside of the screen area or below another window. For example the 16-bit version of the "Flying Windows" screensaver does this. The version that comes with Win98 forces AA off regardless of the system setting, and gives a clean output (but not as smooth). The Standard greyscale method of font aliasing might look crude and choppy. I think it has remained unchanged since since Win98 and Pentium II class systems where it ran at an acceptable speed. I don't think NVidia or any other driver can increase the oversampling factor to produce smoother text. If it did, it would apply to all grescale-rendered fonts, not just the Start button. Overall, I prefer to not use subpixel AA, because it adds color to text that should be black and increses font weight. But that is another topic. The Start button looks quite good in ClearType (this particular combination of white, dark shadow and green doesn't give rise to rainbow colors).

That's an absolute truth. For some mysterious reason people are in love with web UIs which work at the speed of a 10 year old computer or slower on the latest system. They usually display only a small amount of data on 1 screen (like 25 emails instead of a thousand or more) and when I interact with the web UI the entire page gets slowly redrawn. Or an empty page with a few words and one big button, which uses 100% cpu. I'm feeling the slowness on a Conroe CPU as well because I use Opera which has a slower engine. But "the web UI is ubiquitous" and it's the "cloudy" future. And every manufacturer has to produce a bloated web UI or they'll face criticism that they don't look modern enough. I'm typing from my old WinXP Service Pack 1 system right now using the Administrator account. If I was to use Seven, I'd still do it from Administrator with all the account control disabled as much as possible. I can't believe the dance with the TrustedInstaller that people have to go through to get things done.

I'm sure Classic Shell is a great program and the best choice for most people. I followed this guide (or a repost of it somewhere) to make the Start menu appear as a cascading tree, without using any 3rd party software. The process involves relocation and renaming of the MSIE shell folder Favorites, filling it with links to programs and adding that to the Start menu. I've forgotten the exact steps. It seems that Microsoft has a function for creating a cascading menu, but has chosen to disable it for Programs. No doubt to guide users into using their computers the right way™. And Microsoft eventually succeeded, same as they have made most people like the Flat UI by now. Related thread with a bit of drama, when people disagreed about which Start menu was the best. Disadvantages of this method are that the contents of All Users and current User menus don't combine into one list (we must copy over common shortcuts manually), and programs chosen from this menu do not get added to the recently used list in the big box. I also ran into an issue where the modified Favorites folder became "associated with Internet" (I think this occurred when I did something in Internet Explorer, which I normally don't use), and I started seeing a warning every time I started a program from the menu. I recreated the folder from scratch to solve this problem.

"Minimum" requirements are meaningless with most software products. I'm not familiar with Windows Eight, but it does defy common wisdom that software gets more bloated inefficient with every release, and less compatible with older systems that have no commercial value anymore. According to Wiki, Win98 "requires" 16 MB of RAM. Let's bump it to 32 MB. The naked OS with very lean drivers (implies ancient hardware) will boot, but you won't be able to add any applications or allow to for registry growth. Software publishers seem to have a vague definition of what constitutes a functional computer, and leave options open to stretch the facts with cherry picked cases. For example, we can see here a demonstration where Win Eight is supposedly faster or on par with XP, and of course more "secure" than anything that came before it. And yet, it takes the multi-core PC more than a minute to open the Event Viewer with its logs fully parsed. A similar amount of data is read with the older XP's management console in seconds. That is unless you were to compare a Pentium II doing the same operation. Microsoft somehow manages to get away with taking credit for faster processors, video cards, HD audio and megapixel pictures, as if their OS somehow was crucial in enabling these parts to work. I've had a rather "upbeat" first experience with XP's GUI. I think I was impressed by its warm color scheme. The PC in question had the standard reddish Luna theme, but also the brown "Autumn" wallpaper. In retrospect this was rather silly. But that is how I remember. The PCs I got to work with were a generation behind with quarter the memory (64 MB) running Win2K.

The difference between portable and installed versions is merely the location where the settings are saved. If a blank file called "portable.dat" is found, the program saves its settings in the program directory as opposed to the registry. Further experiments revealed a problem. Some of the forms have Part headings as white text on black background. With a color override, that text also becomes black and invisible. I don't know how to solve this efficiently, except by "printing" to a new PDF file and editing that to make the text white again.

"Registry Workshop" ($30) allows several Explorer-like operations, such as copying of keys and drag-and-drop. There are three versions covering all OS down to win98. It can export any key as binary data for editing as a file.

There aren't as many choices as it seems. Zip contains the same exe installer. MSI is a special format for system administrators that only causes grief to regular users. Get the 'portable' version to test the software without any changes to your system. Get the 'EXE' installer to install it with file associations and browser integration (optional).

If I print the forms in PDF-XChange Viewer, they do print out as blue WYSIWYG. I assumed the OP wanted a more legible, economical or faster print in black. I can also Export form data, which produces an XML file with all the fields and none of the formatting. I don't know what uses such an XML would have. I can also save a filled out form, so that it can be opened later with all the data in it. The color override I suggested is only for display and print. I can save a document with black type if I produce a new PDF by printing the form out. This does require a "Pro" version of PDF-XChange. I don't see any practical reason for doing this. One minor issue I can see is that the text doesn't seem to fit neatly in the boundaries of each field. There is not enough padding around text. I don't know it this is a design issue or a flaw in XChange.

PDF-XChange Viewer has an Accessbility setting to Override Document Colors. It's under the program Preferences. I was able to change all text including the form fields to any color. However, this changes the colors of all text to be the same, not just the fields. I used these Forms for testing.

Thank you for posting the sample. It looks like the second line doesn't make use of font hinting, essential instructions in quality fonts that cause lines to intersect at right angles and form symmetric circles to improve readability at low resolutions. Maybe Microsoft counts on users having ClearType enabled where the issue is less pronounced. I'd consider the update buggy and broken. One more reason not to blindly accept updates in general.

You could post a small screenshot illustrating how exactly a page with Times New Roman at a few different point sizes looks.

A little too "austere". I find that the win95 neutral grey color clashes oddly with ClearType; it's almost depressing compared to the default reddish tint on 2k/xp. ClearType makes text purple for no reason on my basic LCD, observed at a steep angle and also when I scroll. People have contradictory impressions about the quality of type under Win Ten. It doesn't use ClearType in this sample, which is also the way I prefer. I suspect that many reports of Win Eight Ten feeling faster can be explained by the system being new and also freshly installed. But Microsoft of course takes the credit for the amount of RAM in the system. And the video card's power is also the product of their DirectX. If only they added small enhancements like this one. One registry association for HKCR\Directory allows to launch CMD from it.

1. Foobar2000 + foo_midi plugin is a self-contained setup that doesn't depend on a sound card or drivers. The program comes with a few software emualation variants of the Yamaha OPL3. It supports most VST instruments, such as the Yamaha S-YXG50. I think it requires at the very least an XP SP3 system (won't work on SP1 or 2k). 2. Yamaha MidRadio. A player with a VST instrument built in (S-YXG2006LE). It is in Japanese, which isn't a problem considering it's simple player. But the interface has some oddities that arise from the fact it's made for a foreign culture. Actually works on Windows 98 and up. English version with an earlier S-YXG50. 3. VanBasco Karaoke Player. A more featured player offering some control over the performance, such as visualizing and muting individual instruments. Does not include a synthesizer, and plays on whatever sound card is installed into the system. 4. A sequencer such as REAPER would offer even more control and editing options, as well as rendering to an audio file. Out of all synthesizers, the S-YXG50 (MU50 sample set) has the most balanced General MIDI sound set. I have no idea which programs are compatible with Windows Eight. That's the price you pay for early adoption: you've got no software. The first two choices are highly likely to work, being standalone programs.

To get "subpixel" resolution the image must be resampled. There is no way around it. Some software may perform it automatically, but it still does it (and it's a pain if it can't be controlled). You will lose some precision, which may not be noticeable on smooth photographs or anti-aliased shapes or type (which themselves already have gone through the process of oversampling, and have fractional pixel resolution), but definitely will blur out sharp transitions like the pixel art "51", assuming it was part of the actual picture you're working on. However, you could resample only the layer that needs to be moved, and leave other layer(s) untouched. Copy it out into a new document, upscale it by a factor of 2, move it, for example, by adding 1px in the Canvas Size dialog. Downscale it to 50%, move it back into the original document. You might want to experiment with different resampling algorithms to balance sharpness and ringing. I know some versions of Photoshop have different Bicubic modes. You might even save the isolated layer as a PNG file with transparency and make use of another software product to resize it, should its result be more pleasing to the eye. If the movable layer was ever in vector format (such as if it was distorted text), you could go back to it's source file, and move the coordinates of it's shapes by the amount required, and repeat any raster editing it has to have.

How is the "HDD Accelerator" a significant improvement over a regular disk cache that is part of every OS, works transparently, and doesn't need to be installed or paid for?

This BSOD will occur with many modern usermode software, such as Media Player Classic HC or FileZilla (even if they work on lower versions such as Win2k). I thought it was specific to SP1, but apparently not. To me it sounds like a major bug in XP that has been since fixed in SP3. I once read it had to do with "alignment", but nothing concrete. I have even set up a virtual machine with SP1 to test new recent programs before I run them (since reinstalling Windows is a major undertaking with many issues). Overall SP1 still has its uses with older games and very low spec machines.

I would like to see a list similar to the one for Win98. How exactly is the SSE2 instruction set connected to applications not working under XP? We have had various 'optimized' binaries with SSE2 and SSE3 for quite a while without issues.