My first few hours with XP

[Mercutio]

Fed up with crappy FAT32, I switched my game machine to WinXP Pro last night.

Machine specs: Athlon T-bird @ 1.5GHz, Epox 8KHA, ATI Rage Pro VIVO, 512MB PC2100 RAM, (2) Maxtor DM 40+ 40GB.

Some thoughts, in no particular order:

1.) Cracking PA was embarassingly easy. Thanks to James for pointing out Corpfiles.
2.) No "cmd.exe" out of the box? Spent a half-hour looking for it. Apparently, it's a "support tool" now.
3.) Why does it take so damn long to execute a .msi?
4.) Speed: It's not any faster, that's for sure. Gave up around 10fps in UT on my ATI Rage. Ouch.
5.) The "new" UI. I really don't like it. Especially the red "close" button and green "start" button. I do like what the UI does when I browse into a directory of images or movie clips. I switched back to the classic-style look. Everything still FEELS slower, even though I have stuff like menu pop-up speed cranked up as high as it'll go.
6.) The media player update. Ack! More interface horrors. The control area in particular is bad. It plays "modern" quicktime clips, though, and doesn't suck as hard as quicktime4.
7.) First Blue Screen: Silly me, I tried to run PowerDVD XP. That was also my second bluescreen. And third. Dammit I don't want media player to do it.
8.) Can't connect to all my samba servers. Annoying. That probably means I'll either be recompiling samba or patching XP. Grrr...
9.) Boot-up time: A little faster than 98 was. Five seconds? Not more than 10. Not impressed, but I don't reboot my machines very often.
10.) Master of Magic, my favorite game, doesn't run no matter how I play with the .PIF settings. Windows2000 will run it. Why not XP?
11.) Winamp seems to like to give errors then crash now. I'm guessing it's probably a plugin causing the problem, but it's hard to tell, what with all the crashing.
12.) Why the HELL can't I uninstall Outlook Express and Microsoft Messanger? Neither is in the Add/Remove programs (or Windows Components) list.
13.) The graphing calculator in XP's powertoys is sweet!
14.) So far the majority of the time I've spent with XP has been trying to make the UI suck less. The bungled start menu, the red "close" button, getting a decent color scheme, finding where certain options are hidden, getting rid of the control panel wizard-like interface.

Overall the best thing I can say about XP is that it supports NTFS. That's really it. Nothing else is worthwhile. Except the graphing calculator, and they didn't even bother to put that on the CD.

[cquinn]

Thanks to James for pointing out Corpfiles.
Technically that is not a crack... Its a workaround using files from
a different build. (hey, what happened to the smiling demon emoticon?)


2.) No "cmd.exe" out of the box? Spent a half-hour looking for it.
Start->Run->cmd.exe or under
Program Files->Accesories->Command Prompt

It should also be in the system32 directory, if you still can't find it,
try an install without the Corpfiles.


3.) Why does it take so damn long to execute a .msi?
I haven't noticed any problems with those here, what .msi file are
you launching?


4.) Speed: It's not any faster, that's for sure. Gave up around 10fps in UT on my ATI Rage. Ouch.
Check www.Rage32.com for tips and possibly driver updates.


5.) The "new" UI. I really don't like it.
Everything still FEELS slower,
(Right-Click My Computer) - Advanced tab - Performance Settings button - Visual Effects - Adjust for best performance.


6.) The media player update. Ack! More interface horrors.
You can change that to the classic interface as well.
I was not aware it would play quicktime, it should not be able to
play any of the sorenson encodings without having the QT player itself
installed.


10.) Master of Magic, my favorite game, doesn't run no matter how I play with the .PIF settings. Windows2000 will run it. Why not XP?
And you've also tried running it in compatibility mode?
also a search at google groups might turn up some hints.


11.) Winamp seems to like to give errors then crash now.
I'll have to try Winamp and get back to you... which version?


12.) Why the HELL can't I uninstall Outlook Express and Microsoft Messanger?
There is a fix for that floating around the net, I think there was even
one mentioned in this forum (but I forget which thread).

Here's a MSKB article on disabling Messenger.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q302089

or http://www.tipsdr.com/windows-xp-tips.html for other tips


13.) The graphing calculator in XP's powertoys is sweet!
Where did you get it from? I've been trying to find the powertoys again
ever since MS pulled them from standard download.


14.) So far the majority of the time I've spent with XP has been trying to make the UI suck less.

All the things you complain about can be customized or were designed
to make it easier for newbies to work with the OS. MS is less concerned
about power users because we can (and will) adjust things to the way
we like without needing the hand-holding.


Overall the best thing I can say about XP is that it supports NTFS. That's really it. Nothing else is worthwhile.

As you said, this has been your first few hours. That is really not long
enough to form such an opinion. I have found system restore, fast user
switching, and (in some aspects) improved hardware support (on newer
hardware) to be quite valuable, and in a few cases those features saved
my butt where W2K or Windows9x would not have been able to.

Its not a perfect OS, and a little tweaking is required to get it to do what
you want, but that has proven true with every OS on the market so far.
Anyway, I hope you give it a little more time to see if it suits you, and
check around for XP tips - you should be able to find a lot since many of
them are carry-overs from Windows 2000 tips of the past.

[Groltz]

12.) Why the HELL can't I uninstall Outlook Express and Microsoft Messanger? Neither is in the Add/Remove programs (or Windows Components) list.


To allow more flexibility in the Windows Components section of the Add/Remove programs applet you need to open the file sysoc.inf (which is located in the C:\WINDOWS\inf folder) in notepad. In the file there are several 'HIDE' commands, which need to be removed. Delete the word hide on all of the lines that have the command and then save the file. When you go back and open up the windows components in the Add/Remove programs applet, you should have several more features to choose from, including Messenger.

If that doesn't work, download and use xp-AntiSpy. (http://www.xp-antispy.de/XPAntiSpy3-English.zip) Among its finer points, it also can remove Messenger from XP.

[Mercutio]

Well, I took some hints and pulled messenger off my machine. OE is still there, offending me with its offensiveness. I'm not sure why it's there at all. My Win98 machine - and I did an upgrade install - didn't have IE at all. I guess the IE6 installer wasn't smart enough to do a minimal install when it encountered a 98lite machine.

cmd: Was not there when I first installed. I got a "command not found" error when I typed in "cmd" on the run line. It *is* there now that I have support tools. Is it a support tool? Or was it just hidden for some reason?

.msi files: I have several. DiskKeeper's installer is an .msi, as are most of the things on the XP install CD. They execute slowly on XP, much faster on 2000.

Media Player: Ah. The classic look is apparently a "skin". Bastards.

My Game: Bombs with the error "Master of Magic requires 2700k of XMS memory". The .pif specifies a 640k environment and 16MB of XMS. I ran through the "Compatibility Wizard" to see if I was missing anything. I'm not, even copied over a .pif from a 2000 machine. Didn't help. I think the setting I'm missing is "Prevent DOS applications from detecting Windows", actually. That doesn't seem to be an option anymore. Oh well. MoM runs under DOSemu just fine.

Winamp: I was using 2.71. I've just d/l'd 2.79. We'll see if that fixes anything.

Powertoys: Check the download section at annoyances.org. Maybe we can host it here, too? I spent about 20 minutes playing with the calculator this morning, and of course tweakui.

My machine is participating in an AD environment so I haven't seen User Switching. The other things are just being added to a litany of annoyances... had to fix the "Find" interface, had to fix "control panel". Why can't they make this stuff install options? winnt32 -classicui or something.

[Prof.Wizard]

Since you're an experienced user, Mercutio, could you tell me if there are any real disadvantages using Windows XP, instead of Windows 2000?

Fortunately, my install of Windows XP Professional works like charm, except a stupid bug regarding MSN Messenger (gives me errors on opening, some times). All programs that were working with my 9x/ME Windows (including many many games) work out-of-the-box with this box.

Check: http://space.tin.it/io/kmihaili/Wizard's%20Desktop.jpg
(Yeah, licking Bill's a$$... :wink: )

[Mercutio]

Prof -
The only one that I've found so far is the "Prevent MS-DOS programs from Detecting Windows" .PIF setting. That and the obvious defect that is XP Home (no domain logon).

After turning off absolutely ALL the interface fluff, except AA fonts, I finally got a satisfactory speed in UI interaction. 2000 isn't that bad in that respect. I didn't have to do that.

XP keeps "losing" my connections to samba servers around the apartment. I think the registery value keeps getting overwritten somehow. There's probably a fix but for right now, every other reboot seems to restore the encrypted authentication requirement for SMB traffic. Argh!

XP is absolutely convinced it knows what's best for me. Its default image viewer is actually pretty damn good (it got a Wow!, in fact), and I really can't believe how fast the system can generate those little thumbnails in image/video directories (under 3 minues on this machine, for a directory with 9,000 image files); anyway, the usual trick of deleting the file type, then clicking on the "unassociated" icon in explorer didn't work. I guess XP maintains a list of default defaults. Anyway, I manually changed the association. I'm usually too lazy to do that, but to be fair XP "suggested" its own image/fax viewer and ACDsee, the app I prefer, as its first choices. Have to wonder why it didn't just keep my previous association.

Winamp's problems, whatever they were, went away when I installed 2.79, but so did Winamp's ability to play midi files (being a musician, I still have a few of my own).

My DVD software still doesn't work. All I have are PowerDVD3 and 4, and Creative and ATI's hardware players, neither of which handle digital output properly. PowerDVD3 has some kind of compatibility issues with XP and PowerDVD4 bluescreens this box shortly after I start it.

I'm thinking if I uninstall IE6 - and XP gives me that option - maybe OE will go, too. That's my next big test.

OK, so to answer your question, Prof, aside from stuff like a "slow" UI, PA less DOS support and XP Home's weirdness, it's basically Windows 2000. But I'm needing to get application compatibility issues sorted out before I make any judgement.

[Prof.Wizard]

After turning off absolutely ALL the interface fluff, except AA fonts, I finally got a satisfactory speed in UI interaction. 2000 isn't that bad in that respect. I didn't have to do that.

...aside from stuff like a "slow" UI, PA less DOS support and XP Home's weirdness, it's basically Windows 2000. But I'm needing to get application compatibility issues sorted out before I make any judgement.
It's funny cause if there is one thing I really like about the new Windows XP, is the new (and much needed after 6 years of Windows 95-like desktops) GUI. But I guess that's because I'm a home user and don't need the extra speed/responsiveness of my desktop, right?

BTW, PowerDVD XP 4 works fine on my box. I don't find it strange that a Cyberlink program creates you problems. PowerDVD 3 crashed my system for no apparent reason on my previous (Windows ME) box. I used WinDVD as alternative.

[Corvair]

. .
One of the first things I did with WinXP was to change its default GUI to the "classic" GUI.



. .

[LiamC]

Mercutio,

one of the things I needed to do to get MoM to run under NT 4.0 was edit the "config.nt" file in the C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32 folder,

right at the bottom I needed to add (or uncomment) the "EMM = RAM" line. This added expanded memory support in NT 4.0 DOS boxes. I didn't have to do this in W2K. Maybe XP has reverted to the NT model?

PS, can you get sound to work with MoM and XP? What about W2K? And if so, how?

[Prof.Wizard]

One of the first things I did with WinXP was to change its default GUI to the "classic" GUI.

LOL guys... are you net fed up with the old GUI yet? Jeez, it sucked big time! (besided reminding of FAT32- buggy- versions of Windows...)

[Pradeep]

What wrong with the classic GUI? Sure the XP Luna looks "pretty" and "nice", but look at all the problems people are having with the OS itself! I would rather the "old" version that actually works, rather than the new and shiny that doesn't. To me an OS is merely a framework for apps to work upon. If I want pretty I will go to the mall and check out the chicks :)

[Prof.Wizard]

I would rather the "old" version that actually works, rather than the new and shiny that doesn't.
Better speak about certain cases. I understand that many have problems with Windows XP, but the "Luna" interface is the last to blame.

I'm an example of the opposite case: from the moment I passed to Windows XP I've never experienced hampering problems. My PC runs full-steam, I boot only once a week, all programs run (and fast), and I found the Luna interface a welcome change...

[Bozo]

One thing: an upgrade over Win98 is going to be a little sucky and slow. A clean install would perform much better.

Try here for tweaks http://www.tweakxp.com/tweakxp/default.asp

Bozo :D

[Clocker]

Merc-

The only reason I use XP is because I simply LOVE the fast user switching. You can use the keyboard (alt+W I think) to quickly switch between users. This is great for my wife and I. It is also the only reason I can see running WinXP.

For the game that won't run for you....right click on the executible of the game and go to properties. There should be a compatiliblity tab there so you can choose to run it in Win2K, Win98, or Win95 compatibility modes. It worked great for me early on when an older version of GameSpy3D would not run in WinXP but would run in Win2K...

[cquinn]

When Windows 95 came out, Windows 3.1 users complained that things
didn't work the same way anymore. When Windows NT came out,
Windows 95 users complained that things didn't work the same way
anymore. When Windows ME/2000 came out, etc...

Now Windows XP is here, and many of the complaints I see are from
people whose first reaction is to still try to do things with the old
workarounds they used in the past, instead of considering that MS
might have built the same functionality into the interface so that the
old workarounds are no longer required... (but new workarounds have
to be learned for other issues :roll: )

It is annoying that MS manages to change the interface to something
different every few years. And some of the "improvements" turn out to
be boneheaded decisions on the part of some PHB in the long run, but
the company does also have a track record of building significant
improvements into the design over time. Some comments here seem to
think that providing a UI that can be made more flexible to accomodate a
wider variety of users is a bad thing. I hate to break it to you, but even
the XP "fisher price" interface is light-years behind other GUI designs that
have come and gone over the years (NeXT, Be, the Workplace Shell, and
dare I say it... the AmigaOS). And if you are really having that much
difficulty with the GUI as it is now, don't even bother upgrading to the
Service Pack release or the next version MS is planning to bring out, the
interfaces there are going to be even more consumer-oriented.
(Of course you could always get a license for XP-Imbedded, which would
probably do away with most of the GUI overhead).

Also FYI: The reason I was looking for the older version of the XP
powertoys, and the supposed reason it was pulled by MS, is because
one of the changes it makes was to enable XP Home versions to be
able to log into Domains after all.

[Corvair]

. .

One of the first things I did with WinXP was to change its default GUI to the "classic" GUI.


LOL guys... are you net fed up with the old GUI yet? Jeez, it sucked big time! (besided reminding of FAT32- buggy- versions of Windows...)

FAT32- buggy- versions of Windows...

Well, I haven't run a version of Windows that used FAT32 file system for well over 7 years. It's been NT 4.0 or Win2K all the way here.


The "Luna" interface on WinXP not only slows operations own a bit, it's also a tad excessive. The Win2K GUI was the pinnacle of M$ GUIs -- just simply very very damn efficient. There are some features in WinXP that I do indeed like, one of which is the image "slide show" function. The slide show function allows me to quickly go through a bunch of scanned images or captured images (electronic still camera) to select which images I want to keep, need to fix, etc.


. .

[Pradeep]

Indeed. If I could get the XP image viewer into win2k that would be excellent :)

[Pradeep]

Oh and the thumbnail view in the search results.....

[James]

Also FYI: The reason I was looking for the older version of the XP powertoys, and the supposed reason it was pulled by MS, is because one of the changes it makes was to enable XP Home versions to be able to log into Domains after all.
The old version of the Powertoys switches your desktop icon bit depth to 8. You have to tool around in the registry to fix that.

[Mercutio]

DVD - after trying WinDVD4 and then PowerDVD XP again, can conclude that the problem I'm having is actually due to setting up the software players to use the SPDIF-out on my sound card. When I have the software do the decoding, everything works. Sadly, with LiveSurround set up, the best sound output on my receiver then becomes Pro Logic II, rather than the Dolby Digital or DTS available when I use an undecoded stream. I suppose that's only a minor annoyance now that I have things figured out, but I kind of feel like I'm missing something.

User interface - Personally, I don't care what things look like, as long as they're minimal, highly responsive, and not distracting. The "Classic" interface, minus all the scrolling and fading, seems to me to be better in that reagard, particularly given the garish colors of the "Luna" interface. Another recent thread on SF describes my GUI use (ie not much at all), but I really do object if the UI can't at least keep up with the speed at which I move my trackball.

[cquinn]

The old version of the Powertoys switches your desktop icon bit
depth to 8. You have to tool around in the registry to fix that.

Found this with a quick google search:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]
"Shell Icon BPP"="16"
"Shell Icon Size"="32"


I assume that setting is for 16-bit displays, but it should give a start for
where to look to fix the setting.

[James]

Yup, that's the one.

[Santilli]

Overall, doesn't every MSOS suck right out of the box?

I think 2000 needed SP 2 before becoming a really good os.

98 SE seems to work very well, but again, it only took five years to work most of the bugs out.

Mercutio: What's wrong with Fat 32? Since I have little interest in anything but stability and speed, for my home os, I installed fat 32, 32k clusters, and, I'm delighted with the speed, and, it's been working like this for a long time.

I also have no choice, since I want to dual boot into 98se on very rare occassions, and, don't feel like taking the time to try and partition, and identify, a separate partition for each os.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

By the way, I always love reading you guys when you start tinkering with stuff that is advanced, fun stuff.

My latest computer ventures are trying to get two, 200mmx
Pentiums working with Caviar hard drives, and 32-64 MB of ram, for school, so handicaped kids can type on the machines...

Anyone heard of Navcom computers???

gs

[Mercutio]

FAT32 has a nasty tendency to screw itself when your system loses power or locks up. Usually you just lose some data in whatever files you had open, whoops, but every once in awhile you'll get a truly awful loss.

In my case, my Win98 machine locked up, and when it came back online, scandisk started marking all the directory entries on one of my disks as invalid files... ended up munching about 38GB of data.

NTFS has some additional structures that keep data integrity very high even in the event of a power loss or operating system fault. It's a tradeoff for speed, but not a very big one, and more than worthwhile.

Upgraded all my *nix machines to Samba 2.2.3a (from 2.2.0) today. My XP box still won't talk to them, even after applying the "official" registry patch to turn off SignorSeal authentication. I have no idea what's going on there. Nothing in the MS knowledgebase or on samba's web site.
Grrr...
That, and the OS fault that I get if I try to use the digital out on my soundcard when watching a DVD doesn't even make a log entry in the system or application logs. That really pisses me off.

[Corvair]

. .

Yup, that's the one.

Pretty picture, but still no NT domain fun.

If this registry hack feature in the long-lost first version of WinXP Power Tools isn't just folklore -- the enabling of an XP Home O/S installation to become an XP Pro NT Domain member -- then this would indeed be intriguing news.



Overall, doesn't every MSOS suck right out of the box? I think 2000 needed SP 2 before becoming a really good os.

Not really. Windows 2000 Pro and Server were pretty damn good right out of the cereal box in when they were released on January (or was it February) 2000. The subsequent service packs were mostly compatibility updates and minor bug fixes. I mean, like yo, M$ had years to get Windows 2000 (WinNT 5.0) right. XP was obviously more of a rush job to end Win9x/ME technologies for good, with some next-gen Windows 2000 afterthoughts thrown in (the Luna GUI).

Yes, to reiterate my earlier 19-word tirade (above), I dumped the Luna GUI within 10 minutes after installing WinXP, reverting back to the "Classic" interface -- which isn't exactly like Win2K's interface, but close enough fer me.



FAT32 has a nasty tendency to screw itself when your system loses power or locks up... ...NTFS has some additional structures that keep data integrity very high even in the event of a power loss or operating system fault. It's a tradeoff for speed, but not a very big one, and more than worthwhile.

3 words: Journaling File System. NTFS is definitely WELL WORTH the slight bit of file I/O overhead (maybe 10%) when it comes to resilience and trustworthiness in case of catastrophic power loss. If one is running NT / Win2K / WinXP, FAT32 should be avoided unless you need compatibility with an old application that requires a DOS FAT file system.




Upgraded all my *nix machines to Samba 2.2.3a (from 2.2.0) today. My XP box still won't talk to them, even after applying the "official" registry patch to turn off SignorSeal authentication. I have no idea what's going on there. Nothing in the MS knowledgebase or on samba's web site.

Do you have a verified Primary Domain Controller? Can you verify its operation with a Win9x / WinNT4 / Win2K client?


. .

[Mercutio]

Yup. I operate an NT4-style domain that 10 of my twleve machines log in to. Works just fine, and the linux boxes all participate as DCs as well as the 2000 servers. XP can connect to the 2000 machines, but not the linux boxes. When I try to connect the linux shares, I get a password prompt (and my password is rejected) despite the fact that everything is already on the same domain and I've applied the only registry hacks for XP I can find.
My shares are all using the samba 2.2.3 syntax for ACLs. There's nothing XP-specific in the ./configure options.

I've been using samba for a lot of years. This is the most annoying situation I've run in to. In a way, I'm glad it happened at home, rather than while I was working for someone else.

[time]

In the Phillipines, people had themselves nailed to crosses to go that extra mile in self-flagellation at Easter.

I see you have found a high-tech alternative for your demonstration of faith.

[Tea]

Err .... do you mind if I take the nails and the cross?

[Tea]

Just about has to be a security level SNAFU. It reminds me of the trouble I had getting connectivity between my existing workgroup and the two new machines I added a while ago: an NT 4.0 box and an ECS box. NT and ECS both caused the same symptom whenever I tried to log onto those boxes from any of the other boxes. (The other boxes were running OS/2 4.0, Win 95 and Win 98SE.)

Turned out that NT and ECS both have higher security defaults, and that to log onto those boxes I had to explicitly create users for the other machines and assign appropriate permissions to them. Once I did that (good old NET USERS command line), it worked fine.

Now your problem is obviously not that problem, Mercutio. (A) because you are far too old a network hand to not know that one, and (b) because if it was your W2K box wouldn't work either. But it has to be something along the same sorts of lines.

But you already knew that.

Now, where did I put that bag of nails?

[Mercutio]

Funny that I don't care to be crucified this morning...

Basically my guess is that XP isn't sending passwords out in a format samba recognizes. A PITA since, looking at the appropriate registry settings, there isn't any control over that. What's frustrating is, sometimes, if I apply the .reg file with the proper setting, I can connect to samba shares, but that power doesn't survive a reboot, and I'm finding myself rebooting this box quite often as I download current drivers, install patches etc... and every single time I've looked, the registry entry my patch changes is already set correctly.

If the problem I was having was in Win98 I could at least comb through system.ini and other places that might impact configuration. Here, I've been through the authentication modules in Samba's source (and even understood some of it!), looked for "auth" and "pass" and "sign" in my XP registry. There's just nothing else I can do.

[Santilli]

:wink:

[Mercutio]

It's looking like it.

Windows 2000 might not allow digital out on my live!, though, so that's really no better. This box is set up for my gaming and entertainment needs. XP isn't doing anything positive for either.

[James]

Basically my guess is that XP isn't sending passwords out in a format samba recognizes. A PITA since, looking at the appropriate registry settings, there isn't any control over that. What's frustrating is, sometimes, if I apply the .reg file with the proper setting, I can connect to samba shares, but that power doesn't survive a reboot, and I'm finding myself rebooting this box quite often as I download current drivers, install patches etc... and every single time I've looked, the registry entry my patch changes is already set correctly.

You may recall I complained about this over at SR - probably before the database loss.

You do need to set an option to allow 2000/XP to send unencrypted passwords (it's in the registry). There's a Readme on this subject in the Samba distribution, or check on the web site.

Next you'll find that you can attach the remote Samba drives but when you reboot it forgets the password and you have to enter it again.

In the end I had to use a DOS batch script to attach to the share - very annoying.

[Tea]

In the end I had to use a DOS batch script to attach to the share - very annoying.

You mean there is another way? :-? The command line rULeZ! :wink:

[Mercutio]

James, believe me, if I'm digging in source code, I've looked at all the docs already.

This is the only registry key distributed w/ XP:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\netlogon\parameters
"RequireSignOrSeal"=dword:00000000

I've also tried entering the Win2000 plaintext password .reg file. Which does extactly nothing. Also tried changing the other keys in that netlogon key to no worthwhile effect.

I've even gone through the pain, now, of re-doing the whole 90-minute install process to make sure I've got a clean environment. What I've found is sometimes that .reg patch works and sometimes it doesn't. Right now I'd just be happy if things operated consistently. They don't (or more accurately, I haven't found consistency yet). Theoretically, if I've applied the patch, my linux boxes should at least accept my correct password.

Setting mapped drives via "net use" isn't a big deal. All my login scripts work that way anyway.

Yes, "net use" is incredilby useful. "net" in general, actually.

[Mercutio]

That should be "The only reg. patch for XP distributed with samba", rather than whatever I wrote. I need sleep.

[Splash]

. .

...You do need to set an option to allow 2000/XP to send unencrypted passwords (it's in the registry)...

If you didn't have your SaMBa *nix box operating as the PDC of your NT Domain and instead had a real WinNT 4 Server or Win2K Server operating as the PDC, then theoretically the encrypted password problem would disappear.

I wonder what they (the SaMBa folks) have planned for SaMBa 3.0, which is supposedly going to be compatible with high-tech M$ ActiveDirectory services.


. .

[Mercutio]

Did you need a new nick already, Gary?

I could always promote a 2000 server to be PDC on my domain. Honestly I don't think it would help.

[Tea]

What the hell, Merc - you've tried everything else haven't you?

[Mercutio]

If I have to alter the state of any domain controler to allow XP to connect to samba-served shares, then XP has sucessfully broken either netlogon or SMB and is therefore unusable.

[Splash]

. .

...I could always promote a 2000 server to be PDC on my domain. Honestly I don't think it would help. I suspect it would, only because the Primary Domain Controller stores the domain's access control list and the decryption engine.


Did you need a new nick already, Gary? Well, it is becoming warmer these days, at least on the top half of the earth. Otherwise, it's the SR dichotomy effect.


. .

[Santilli]

I have no such problems, nor have I ever had, running 2000.

On the otherhand, I'm pretty lame when it comes to configing
Redhat, or Mandrake...

gs

[Mercutio]

I have no such problems, nor have I ever had, running 2000.



XP has been out long enough that problems like the ones I've having just shouldn't be. I'm sure the Samba team is P.O.'d about whatever changes XP brought to the fileshare/authentication code, too. It's really not their fault.
Between that and the insta-crash from actually wanting to use all the features of my DVD playing software, yeah, I gotta say, XP is a steaming pile of something.

I suppose I'll be installing 2000 on that box tomorrow.

[Bozo]

Looks like 'Big Brother' Bill had XP purposly designed not to be compatable with Linux.

Bozo :D

[Mercutio]

Funny thing about that... there are a lot of NAS units out in the world that use non-upgradable samba servers for client access. It's not just breaking the latest version of samba, it's limiting the utility of all that (fairly expensive) hardware, too.

[Pradeep]

Given that MS have changed the winXP OEM EULA licensing to permit "downgrading" from XP Pro to win2k Pro and below, it's not all bad :)

OEM EULA change (http://gita.state.az.us/licensing_contracts/Microcomputer/Windows%20XP%20Announces%20Changes%20to%20OEM%20EU LA.pdf)

[James]

If you didn't have your SaMBa *nix box operating as the PDC of your NT Domain and instead had a real WinNT 4 Server or Win2K Server operating as the PDC, then theoretically the encrypted password problem would disappear.

I don't run a PDC at all. I'm only running a home network here, for Chrissake.

That way my MP3s are stored in a directory on my Sun box which I can access from everywhere - my Audiotron can read it too. I don't need massive device/user authentication at home.

[Splash]

. .

I don't run a PDC at all. I'm only running a home network here, for Chrissake.

That was a message for Mercutio, since he is running a domain controller (SaMBa 2.2 has PDC capability).


As for you, James, you are using NBT, correct? That's all I use at home, but I have setup domains at home before.




. .

[James]

I don't run a PDC at all. I'm only running a home network here, for Chrissake.

That was a message for Mercutio, since he is running a domain controller (SaMBa 2.2 has PDC capability).

Ah, but you quoted me - hence the confusion.


As for you, James, you are using NBT, correct? That's all I use at home, but I have setup domains at home before.

I'm using Samba in a very lobotomised mode. What can I say, it was easy (precompiled binaries, yay!).

I did run AD at home for a while for kicks - or at least I thought it would be for kicks. What I found was that it was such an admin nightmare even with just two real users plus guest users, two network-attached printers, a filestore, a network CD changer, a DNS server and a DSL connection, that I gave it the flick and went scurrying back to the familiarity of Solaris and basic file sharing.

I'm about to sell my Ultra 5 box - it's huge overkill for what I do, and I can still get pretty good money for it out here - and replace it with one of the many P133/166 boxes I have kicking around. I'll run FreeBSD since I'm most comfortable with that, and after all the box is only doing basic fileserving, collecting and filtering my mail, then presenting it via an IMAP server - hardly challenging even for a "slow" box.



. .[/quote]

[Mercutio]

Well, I kicked one of my samba machines down to "workgroup-mode" for a little test.

... and it turns out that XP won't connect to that either. Note that none of the other machines have a problem connecting to it, even on the workgroup, just XP.

So I kicked the XP machine out of my domain, too, down to the same workgroup. At this point there is full commonality between the usernames on my XP box and samba on all my machines, full commonality among passwords etc.

XP still won't talk to my "workgroup" samba server and it still won't talk to those in my domain.

Gary, you should to know better than to say that PDCs carry the authentication engine for netlogon. That's not wholly true. Every domain controller has software for authentication, and every DC can authenticate a client (every DC, of course, has a copy of the PDC's ACL for the domain). Samba may be reverse-engineered, but it does exactly the same authentication as NT4. In its present, patched state, my Win2000 DCs can't even use the more advanced, encrypted authentication.

[Splash]

. .

...XP still won't talk to my "workgroup" samba server and it still won't talk to those in my domain...
I was just browsing through Samba's website covering version 2.2.x

http://www.samba.org/samba/ftp/docs/Samba-HOWTO-Collection.pdf

Encryption handling is the likely hangup.


I know this is grasping for straws, but, how about a slightly far-out test, but not really all that far-out:

Assuming you're running a 100 Mb/s Ethernet network, try setting the Ethernet card in your WinXP box to run only 10 Mb/s then attempt another login to your Unix-alike boxes. I would even go as far as warm re-booting the WinXP box after the switch to 10 Mb/s just to positively confirm 10 Mb/s operation before the test. If it suddenly does work, that means there is a subtle incompatibility at the hardware (Ethernet hardware, not wire/cable) or transport layer -- somewhere (XP?). The only reason I mention this particular test is that I once experienced a compatibility problem like this with a Netware 4 server.

Some questions:

*. . Is your Ethernet network switch-based or hub-based?
*. .If you are running ftpd on any of those Samba 2.2 Linux boxes, can you FTP from your WinXP box into your Linux boxes?
*. .If you are running a webserver on any of your Samba 2.2 Linux boxes, can your WinXP box load a webpage from one of those Linux boxes?
*. .Are you running NetBEUI on your WinXP box?
I'm assuming you're not running WINS there for some reason.




Gary, you should to know better than to say that PDCs carry the authentication engine for netlogon...
Yes, I know way better. What I was trying to say earlier is that you should try putting an honest-to-goodness (badness?!?) Windows NT 4.0 Primary domain controller (all other as secondary domain controllers and/or workgroup clients) into the mix and see if you can suddenly (magically) log into *any* of your Samba 2.2 Linux boxes from your WinXP box. If it did, you would isolate your problem to authentication and the likely problem of encryption handling.


PS: I'm up to my ass in test homework and term papers (Business Administration) as well as taking care of my usually-more-than-40-hour-a-week job, so, I may not get back here so quickly to dish out sundry mistreatments and provide eccentric suggestions.


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