WinXP vs. Oldsk00l: an open letter

[moritheil]

I'm having several issues with WinXP, and I thought I'd turn to you, O l33test of hax0rs, geek among Geeks, for help.

1. How can I disentangle MSNExplorer from my ISP? I'd rather not have all my web pages, information sent, etc. logged to the MSN "Secure server" indefinitely.

2. How can I get my beloved Zmud 3.1 to run? Silly XP doesn't run 16bit progs... anyone have a copy of the 32bit version?

3. Why does Freedom suck so much, and is ZoneAlarm still good?

4. How do I awaken the 0wnz0r within?

Yours in 1337,

Mori

[moritheil]

Is noone l33t? Please respond. :wink:

[Aldavien]

I use the 32 bit version of zmud (4.62).

I know several people who use ZoneAlarm and like it..haven't messed with it much myself.

-Aldavien Altreel
Telser Teve'ral

[Azenilsee]

I don't like ZoneAlarm that much mainly because it's too confusing to setup, but I have found a good alternative. Go to http://www.agnitum.com and download the Outpost firewall. It's as good as ZoneAlarm, plus easier to configure.

[fildur]

2. How can I get my beloved Zmud 3.1 to run? Silly XP doesn't run 16bit progs... anyone have a copy of the 32bit version?

xp will not recognize 16 bit progs as progs, but i believe that 16bit progs still are runnable...

3. Why does Freedom suck so much, and is ZoneAlarm still good?

zonealarm still works, but it sometimes will make your puter run slow. solution: when it gopes slow, go into the taskmanager and shut down vsmon. then restart zone alarm.

other tips on running xp is:
randomly curse, that helps you survive xp
thank your wife for installing msn messenger :evil:
shut your eyes and pray
dont ever believe that what you are doing in any way corresponds to what you actually are doing
never, ever, i talk from personal experience, try to uninstall win mediaplayer
/fildur

[Bilraex]

i have nothing constructive to say about Microsoft
so youre only recourse is to install a real OS
ie.. upgrade to Linux or OSX, problem solved

[Sarvis]

ROFL!!! OSX? A _real_ OS? And I used to think Linux proponents were smart...

[Bilraex]

OSX is more of an OS then Windows, least its built ontop of Unix

[Sarvis]

Being built on top of UNIX doesn't make you a good OS if you are trying to emulate windows. I don't really feel like going through all this again, but suffice to say I use both every day and am happy to come home to my new XP system.

[moritheil]

Thanks guys!

Any tips on avoiding MSN Explorer? :D

[Sarvis]

Use Opera?

If you mean avoid having it installed, I doubt it... I think you actually can uninstall it, but some applications use parts of it so it would just get reinstalled eventually.

Also, I _think_ there's a way to run 16 bit apps, I'm just not sure how. I can try asking my roomate tomorrow. But it'd probably be betterfor you to just upgrade. ;)

[ssar]

Yeah, MS likes to ram MS down yer throat.

Go into ctrl panel - edit windows components (or some such) and remove MSN entry.

But as others said, components of it will return probably.

[Colje]

Personally, I would try to find a replacement or upgrade to a newer 8) version of it but
Its a long shot but you could try running it with “program manager” do you remember win 3.11? well this is it. it is in C:\WINDOWS\system32\progman.exe (assuming that that you use C: as the system root and WINDOWS as your windows directory if you use different setting substitute as needed) that may work.

Or you can use an emulator for win9x, that should work too.

If you still have problems, mudmail med and I'll give you other options. There's plenty of them.

/Colje 8)

[Kuurg]

Within XP, in your properties for a given application, you can specify what kind of 'environment' xp should run the app in (i.e. 95, 2000...) don't have it in front of me, might see if there's anything in there about 16 bit, failing that, try in '95' env.

Opera is crap . Mozilla is a kick ass tabbed browser available for the pc/*nix/osx.

ZoneAlarm is a very easy to configure software based firewall that allows you to set default access levels and specific access rights for applications (i.e. program A can dowhatever it wants on the local subnet, Computer B on the network is allowed to access this computer based on it's IP address, etc...) Still better than things like black ice. I'd recommend it. I still think it's the best free firewall out there.

XP is crummy. yay *nix/OS X.

[moritheil]

zonez0r it is!

I tried messing with the environmental settings for some old progs, but I'm afraid some of them just aren't runnable in XP.

C'est la guerre.