At 10:27 PM 11/22/2001 -0700, you wrote:

>"I have no doubt many thousands of 9x/Me
>upgraders are going to be thoroughly shocked by the number
>of pieces of software and hardware which 'break' under
>Windows XP."
>
>Beware, and do your homework thoroughly before upgrading.  The redoubtable
>Fred Langa has made similar comments.
>
>Scanners, USB devices, and CD-burning software seem particularly vulnerable.


My own $0.02...

On hardware:  I've heard that ISA cards are a "gimme" to not work in XP. My
Sound Blaster AWE 64 was found and works perfectly in XP Pro. My Highpoint
/66 controller ended up in "Other Devices", but installing the software
that came with it, (even though XP warned me it wasn't going to work),
fixed the problem. My parallel scanner never made the move. I didn't expect
it to either. But with the price of new USB scanners well under $100,
it'was well worth the upgrade. My internal 100MB zip drive showed up right
away, but I needed to download the XP version of Tools from the website. My
Plextor 12-10-32 was "writable" right after installation... although the cd
burning feature in XP is really lacking in usability. Nero is usable right
out of the box, and Roxio now has updated software for version 5 of their
EZ CD Creator... (follow the instructions on the website!! Note: You're
told to make sure to upgrade to version 5.02b before installing the XP
patch... but when I did, it said there no software to upgrade... bypassing
the patch resulted in no problems, as I''ve used pretty much all the
features with no problems.).

One thing I was particularly impressed with was that XP nailed all the
hardware in my box on the install... sound, (SB AWE64), video, (GForce2
MX400). Modem, (LT Winmodem), Burner, Zip Drive, and Network card, (Dlink
530TX+). No other version of Windows has done this on it's own... of
course, you'll want to check the manufacturers website for their XP updated
drivers.

In conclusion... I totally agree that "you should do your homework" before
installing XP... and be prepared for the possibility of upgrading your
hardware and software.

Volkard Linke

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