anak1

Don't hold your breath. It was nearly a year between SP1 and SP2, so I expect SP3 sometime in February of next year.

Actually, I thought most of the same things about XP until I actually installed it. It really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. You can turn off/uninstall all the other crap you don't like about it(except WPA of course). It is a very fast OS. Boot up time is around 15 seconds for me, and even with the new UI and all sorts of graphical enhancements, it is quite a bit faster than 2K was.

I completely agree with you Brian. Not to beat these car analogies to death but, What if you went out and bought a car, started driving it home and realized the spedometer didn't work? You go back to the dealership and the salesman says, "Yeah, that doesn't work right now, here, use this chalkboard and write down the speed you think you are going instead. We will fix the spedometer when we feel like it" It's the EXACT same thing with bug ridden software. By evaluating software you are holding copanies responsible for releasing quality software, and when a company doesn't release a demo they obviously have something to hide.

Why should I have to pay anything to evaluate a product? Do you have to pay for gas to test drive a car at a dealership? Microsoft claims that this WPA will prevent piracy, and according to them, they "lose" billions of dollars due to piracy. Let's see if they aren't full of BS and release Windows XP full edition for $100, shall we? Everyone knows they will never do this, their entire piracy argument is absolute crap. Hell, I have downloaded games before because the companies didn't offer a demo. Based on these downloads, I have gone out and actually bought the software, as have some of my friends based on the "pirated" software. I always delete the software afterwards. How is anyone losing in this situation? When you buy a piece of software without evaluating, you are essentially telling a company "It's OK to release a a bug ridden product because once I buy it I'm stuck with it", and that is far worse than any form of piracy.

I don't know about you guys, but my money doesn't grow on trees. I'm a college student and cash is very tight for me. If I'm going to spend $250 on a piece of software I had better be damned sure I'm going to keep it and use it, which is where demos come in. Would you buy a car without test driving it? Would you buy one based on the color of the paint? This is what software companies are essentially doing when they dont offer trial programs. If companies truly put effort into their software and are proud of their work, they would offer demo versions of them. I believe when a company doesn't offer a free trial of software it reflects on them poorly. 99% of the population doesn't know how to pirate software and buy their software legit, nor do they want to know how to pirate software. I'm sure everyone can agree that a try before you buy, especially with items that are hard to return, is necessary. I am not saying piracy is OK at all, but whenever I see that poor car analogy used I must correct it.

Your car analogy is seriously flawed. I am not advocating piracy but that analogy is wrong. Let's assume for a moment that you have a machine that can duplicate anything that you wanted(I.E. a computer). Let's say your rich friend just bought a brand new Dodge Viper. You could never afford that Dodge Viper. But what if you made a copy of that Dodge Viper with your machine, just for the hell of it? Technically, Dodge has lost no money on the car because they don't even know that you copied it, and second you technically aren't even able to buy that car in the first place because you don't have enough money to afford it. You aren't stealing because Dodge has lost nothing. Again..I am not advocating piracy but I do understand their point of view. I have downloaded software before to see if I wanted to buy it. There is no way I'm going out and spending $250 bucks of my hard earned money out of faith that the software is good. Most stores have a No return policy on opened software. If I didn't like it, I would be out $250 now wouldn't I?

Its the beta release. Flash crap seems to scroll better though so I guess that might make it worthwhile.

Not really worth the download if you ask me. Im running a leaked build(later than the one on MS site), and frankly there isnt much here to make it worthwhile. Smart Tags = Worthless, and the Media Bar is Worthless too.

I use audiogalaxy for the most part but when I cant get a song from that I use limewire.

This is my dillema exactly. I don't want Creative's bloatware on my computer but I need the ability to switch between headphones and 4.1 speakers. Switching them in control panel produces sound out of the rear speakers but it is so faint as to be almost inaudible at 3ft away.

Running IE 6 Build 2469. I like it overall, it seems much more responsive and has better security features. I could live without Smart Tags however. The build of IE 6 thats available for public preview is absolute crap, don't even bother downloading that if your going the IE 6 route. I have used both IE 5.5 and IE 5.01, both seem fine to me.

I have a version of WMP8 thats ripped out of XP and it really sucks. Most of the new stuff in WMP8 won't even work under 2K, so essentially its WMP 7.

Long overdue... This service pack adds new OpenGL Libraries. OpenGL performance in Win2K now far exceeds that of 98SE..for me anyways.

I used to use netscape but stopped because of the horrible bugginess and constant crashes. It would also corrupt my user profile on occasion too. I thought IE the devil for a long time but finally got so fed up with Netscape that I switched and haven't looked back. It isn't worth your time to troubleshoot that crappy browser, now might be a good time to start using IE.

I know exactly how you feel. Rumor was that it was going to be out in early March. I finally got so sick of waiting for it I downloaded RC 2.52 from m3dzone.