Ableton Forum

Sure this debate has gone around many many times, and will revisit it again next week. But for now, here's one more perspective...

When computers were slower in 2001, we were told to turn off all of XPs bells and whistles. Now that PCs are tons faster, if you turn on many of XPs features, then get a few MS Powertoys like ClearType Tuner and Alt+Tab replacment, and then get a couple of aftermarket addons like Stardock's Powerdock and StyleXP, your computer will seem like a whole new OS. The engine underneath is still solid and stable XP. The CPU only works a bit harder for all the XP transitions and what not, but with today's powerful CPUs, the hit is negligible.

I'm sure the PC haters will tell me about how OSX is so much better and all that, and I don't necessarily disagree, but for those of you with new dualcore PCs who don't want Vista...you won't necessarily have to feel like you're using a stale old OS.

Just another perspective.

Awww, man....How many years have I been using XP and I've never heard of ClearType

My eyes are now giving you big thanks

yeah, I only recently found out about ClearType Tuner. The basic cleartype setting in XP always seems to blur it out too much. But the Tuner (part of some nice M$ Powertoys) gives you options to have it be smoother but not too blurry.

All these little touches make a big difference, but without the deep impact to resources like Vista, or the deep impact to your wallet like getting a brand new mac.

Here are the links to these tools:

Objectdock: http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

StyleXP: http://www.tgtsoft.com/
and a ton of themes at http://www.themexp.org/

MS Powertoys - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

just for shits, try swapping your XP boot screen with this:

http://www.themexp.org/preview.php?mid= ... c%20OS%20X

Or patch your UXtheme.dll using Neowin UXTheme Multi-Patcher v4.0 from here http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=140707

You can then use any MSstyle directly without needing to install anything like Windowblinds or Style XP, a good light style actually runs lighter than the native windows themes when doing it this way. To unpatch all you have to do is re-run the patcher.

You can download msstyles from lots of places, this is a good one. http://search.deviantart.com/?section=b ... q=msstyles

very nice, martyn...are there templates for Neowin?

nebulae wrote:very nice, martyn...are there templates for Neowin?

Basically, XP was originally built to be skinnable but microsoft felt that it would cause them too many problems in the long run to support that. All this patch does is turn that feature back on, you can then download any msstyle and apply it by simply double clicking it.


I'm using one called Licorice at the moment, it's clean, uncluttered and runs really light.



Downloadable from here http://lassekongo83.deviantart.com/art/ ... S-49243994

I used to worry about changing my system icons and stuff like that but these days I just want everything as lean as possible.

um, so basically you're totally undermining my thread for nicer bells and whistles... gee, thanks a lot...

;P

I'm still on a P4 ya basterd, if you look around deviant art or customize.org and see what some people have done with theirs I think you'll find that my post merely augments your precious thread.

lol

*hugs*

do what you like, bro...you make amazing music, so I'm sure your minimal approach works just fine for you

Well, its nice to see that XP doesn't have to be so painful on the eyes...but does the N°2 old arguement not to get a mac (price hit) really hold these days? An imac goes for $1200, the mini is half that- That seems so cheap to me. What does that get you in the PC world? I feel that if you want to get a decent PC, you're going to pay a comparable price. If you want the basic web-surfing model, you may get by with a cheapo.

The bottom of the line Imac these days:
20" display
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
250GB hard drive

And the mini:
1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
80GB hard drive

yeah, was waiting for this...I knew you mac-guys couldn't help yourselves, so welcome to the discussion.

When I got my c2d desktop, I spent $1600 total. At the time a comparable Mac desktop went for around $3K.

Yes, they have come down in price, and if you want a new machine, it's not a bad option. But this thread is all about how you don't need to go with Vista and how XP can still look and feel great. If you're among the many MANY used who only want to swap a few parts to update your PC and stay with XP, you have a lot of options.

nebulae wrote:But this thread is all about how you don't need to go with Vista and how XP can still look and feel great.

Just to bring this back on topic for a sec...

Looks like Fry's is having a Black Friday sale on the new 20" 2.4 iMac - $794!

http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/11/21/ ... frys.sale/

@ Neb Thanx for the kind words about the music, I really appreciate it.

It's funny, a good friend and I were just checking last night to see what sort of price Mac desktops were running at these days, we calculated that you could build (cos that's the beauty of the platform) a comparable spec machine for roughly half of the asking price. For the same money you could build a very serious pc indeed and still have a bit left over for some software.

XP has been really good to me over the last 7 years, I've had very little in the way of hassle, done lots of graphics, made lots of music, enjoyed the best bits of the internet without a hitch. I recently bought a laptop for my mother that had Vista on it and I just didn't get along with it at all, it took ages to boot and could only just run when finally alive. Then all it does is bombard you with "this computer is not safe" and "this is a security risk" sort of bullshit. I'm going to have to see how it all looks in a year or so before writing it off just yet but I might HAVE to switch to Mac if it doesn't improve a LOT.

I do have to say that if it wasn't for Ableton Live, a handfull of plugins and Adobe, I could COMPLETELY switch to Linux now though, it's REALLY doing it for me for every other use i need a computer for. My mother's laptop is now running it too and it absolutely flies.

This is the version of ubuntu I'm running at the moment that shows some of the Compiz Fusion effects if you're into eye candy. This is the stock ubunty "gutsy" install!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvnQE1EAEZY

I have it turned off though, cos I'm a "minimal dude"