Vista Beta 2 has Major Problems 683
WebHostingGuy writes "In a review by Gary Krackow from MSNBC who reviewed Vista Beta 2 over the last week he had very disappointing problems. "for me [it] was one of the worst operating system experiences that I've ever encountered." Built-in audio and wireless didn't work on his Levono laptop. It took four days to get the first installation."
Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who's sitting here and wondering, "What was this guy thinking?!" Laptops have so much custom hardware these days that it's a Bad Idea(TM) to attempt an OS installation from anything but restore CDs. This guy not only tried to install from new media, but he tried to install a cutting-edge operating system that isn't even out of beta!
Desktops are cheap these days. Would it kill him to keep one or two around for "kicking the tires" of new Operating Systems? His install experience probably would have been smoother, and we might have actually been able to hear some real complaints about Windows Vista.
Maybe Not So Fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, as Mr. Krakow points out, it's a Beta. Do we all know the concept of that word? It's still being tested. Ironically, he loves the operating system but his main gripe seems to be ill-supported hardware drivers. Laptops are notorious for having odds n' ends hardware in them as everyone thinks their proprietary integrated devices are the best but oddly stop supporting them after that model is done selling.
Ever installed Linux in a laptop? I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced. It's a bit of a pain in the ass but a big payout at the end. Give Vista the year or two and when it's released, I'm pretty certain companies will start updating their drivers to be "Vista ready." Is this Microsoft's fault? Possibly for not making certain the early Beta versions were universal and adaptive to different hardware but I don't know enough about drivers to speculate any further.
The points he makes about the actual Vista operating system sound optimistic. In fact, I didn't hear him complain at all about the functioning aspects and features.
All in all, this review was a waste of my time to read. The man spent all his time bitching about his laptop/driver problems and no time at all on analyzing what the operating system has to offer.
Perhaps the next time he reviews Lenovo Laptops [msn.com] and raves about them, he'll actually check if their drivers are supporting all operating systems. I don't know if you can depend on IBM to support their old laptops or expect the new makers of Lenovo to support the old hardware. Hell, even my Dell laptop has some obscure sound and wireless card models which are painful to find the right drivers for.
I don't want to spout conspiracies but I think that Mr. Krakow favors the "almighty Apple" over "evil Microsoft." You can read his other [msn.com] reviews [msn.com] which may be a bit biased [msn.com]. That last one is really pro-iTunes. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this man may be a tad biased
Dumb article (Score:4, Insightful)
Worst OS experience ever? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hardware problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe Not So Fair? (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, isn't the Slashdot mentality great? Poor driver support for Linux: "Broadcom/ATI/whoever Is The Devil." Poor driver support for Windows: "Vista Beta 2 has Major Problems." Go Figure.
Re:Article Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF? An OS installation from restore CDs? Can you tell me where to get vista restore CDs? (or linux ones for that matter?)
Who said he was supposed to use a restore CD for Vista? I said that laptops have so much custom hardware that it's a Bad Idea to do an OS install from anything but a restore CD. Since there's no install CD for Vista, he probably shouldn't have been trying to install on his laptop. Clear?
The success of a new operating system depends at least in part on how easy it is to install.
Nonsense. The last several iterations of Operating Systems have been handled via machine upgrades. Vista will be no different, especially given its higher system requirements. However, manufacturers should start supporting Vista once it's actually out. Which means that any poor souls who want to, say, upgrade a laptop will be able to after the OS is released.
If you'd read the article, you would know that he did: "I did try installing Vista on two other laptops."
How do you get from "Try it on a Desktop system" to "He tried it on a couple more laptops."
Did you read a single word I wrote?
Re:Worst OS experience ever? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ballmer expects more Vista delays (Score:4, Insightful)
When the two cheifs can't even agree, at least in PUBLIC, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the project.
Now where did I put that OS X brochure?...
Re:Bugs in a beta? (Score:2, Insightful)
Release Candidates are supposed to be near release quality with few (if any bugs).
But beta is still a buggy risk. Google has really warped the definition of the word with their products.
Just a site note of Ubuntu user... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, as IT guy I would say that such driver problems gives OS bad name, so it is rather strange that Microsoft have major problems with it. Maybe it was too early to call it beta.
You forgot ME (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Maybe Not So Fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
Beta (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually i dont think Microsoft will meet the October deadline if they dont let a lot of bugs slip through their fingers. Doing that would really be to shoot themselves in the foot. The last thing Microsoft needs right now is another Windows Millenium that people just ignore. If most people just hold out until the next version of windows instead it could do a serious blow to Microsofts income.
Knowing the meaning of "beta" (Score:5, Insightful)
He has these things to say when excluding his whining:
- I was given a pre-beta 2 release but will call it "Beta 2" in this article.
- I can't install this "Beta 2" on my Lenovo ThinkPad X60 laptop.
- I know beta software can be quirky.
- I couldn't run an automated upgrade from XP.
- I could run a clean install, but not all drivers are available yet, like that to my wireless card.
- A clean install will not let you keep old drivers.
- Install on Computer #2 failed because my clock battery was too old.
- Install on Computer #3 failed because my hard drive crashed early on.
- With Microsoft support help, I now have Vista running to some extent on my laptop.
Now, is this in any possible way a surprising turn of events for beta software with about a half a year left for bug fixing, polish, and catch-ups from driver developers? I really have to defend MS a bit when clueless people like him are given enough attention to appear on Slashdot.
Re:Article Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that is his point; there ARE none yet, so of course all those custom drivers that the laptop makers put do not yet exist for Vista.
The success of a new operating system depends at least in part on how easy it is to install.
True, but do you really expect MS to make drivers for EVERY device out there, even those that seem to require custom drivers? Some devices you simply MUST get the drivers from the manufactorer, there's no way around it.
If you'd read the article, you would know that he did:
I did try installing Vista on two other laptops. One, it turns out, needs a new Real Time Clock battery (a trip to the manufacturer is needed) and another which had a massive hard drive failure at the beginning of the installation process.
So now are you trying to claim hardware failures are the fault of Vista?
There are legit reasons to bash MS; try sticking to those. Bashing for everything just makes you look silly.
~Six Months until go time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonetheless, did anyone think the highlights weren't that high?
* A streamlined Start menu.
* Instant Search in every Explorer window.
* Search Pane lets you organize information by author, date, or type of document.
* Windows Sidebar puts frequently used information and tasks right on the desktop. This feature will remind OS X users of that system's Dashboard feature.
* Network Explorer puts all network connections -- like printers, other computers, and devices - into one centralized location.
* Sync Center helps users manage all their devices from one place.
* Tablet PC functionality is integrated into most versions of Windows Vista.
* Windows Media Center 11, also standard in Vista, includes live and recorded television, music, photos and videos.
* Improved Windows Media Player.
* New power management features for mobile computers to optimize battery performance.
* Windows Defender regularly scans and removes spyware and other unwanted software.
* Classic Windows games, as well as several new ones.
None of these are compelling reasons to upgrade from XP. I see minor features and re-organizations. Power management? Hmmmm... not enough. Windows Defender? Not doing it for me. I thought there were a lot of other more compelling reasons?
Re:Maybe Not So Fair? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep!
I think you'll find that the scavenger hunt for drivers is similar to what Gary experienced.
Nope! [ubuntu.com]
As a matter of fact I installed it on two laptops recently. A (now more or less) brandspanking new Samsung X50 and on a fairly ancient Dell C600. Except for a few very minor quirks (specifically suspend to disk) both work like a charm; this includes the widescreen at its designated resolution and WLAN.
As a matter of fact, while I spent an entire afternoon installing W2K on the Dell (drivers, reboot, loads of hotfixes, reboots, newer version of software, reboot, hotfix for the new version, etcetc...), Ubuntu took less then an hour in order to be installed and fully updated.
I'm not claiming that Microsoft sux and Linux rox, but in this specific case installing Windows was definitely a pain in the butt as compared to Ubuntu.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, Ubuntu and Mandriva have supported everything perfectly on the last 5 computers I've had (3 of them laptops that have tons of unsupported hardware with an XP stock install), so "there's too much custom hardware" is no excuse for a miserable OS installation experience. So he does have a very valid gripe, but it's also nothing new with Vista.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Er?
I've installed Windows XP on all of my laptops over the past few years, and everyone else in my office does the same thing, too. Laptops come with too much cruft installed by default, and in general, it's silly for us to pay to upgrade to XP Pro when there's a site license available for next to nothing here. So wipe the drive, in goes a new installation of XP Pro, alongside Linux, typically. I've never run into a problem.
Jumping to Dell's [dell.com] site for the laptop I'm on now, all of the drivers are right there ready.
Now, there aren't Vista drivers. But if what he's saying is "driver support for Vista may be lacking, so you might have trouble", I don't really see that as a problem. A lot of people only have laptops nowadays, so not being able to install Vista on a laptop easily means a lot of people aren't buying Vista.
Re:Maybe Not So Fair? I disagree! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes... yes I have. Quite a few times actually. And you know what? Over the years the install process has gotten easier and easier. On my current laptop I am now running Ubuntu Dapper which is still Beta. Everything just works out of the box, including built-in wireless with WPA. My last laptop ran Fedora then Gentoo, and once again everything just worked.
I do not know of these mythical driver problems you speak of. I think you will find installing Windows these days is more of a pain in the ass than installing Linux. I see our desktop/network guys at work re-install windows from time to time, and I always chuckle about the nastiness of a windows install... and thats with *non* Beta versions. I showed one of the guys a Ubuntu install, and he just about pee'd his pants at how easy it was!
Re:Article Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe Not So Fair? (Score:3, Insightful)
I take it that you don't [gmail.com] work [froogle.com] for [google.com] google [google.com]? As far as all the linked services go, I don't ever seem to have your typical "beta problems" like crashing every 10 minutes. My point? Beta depends on who you talk to and the "concept" no longer means what it used to mean. Especially as google extends its grasp on the world.
How much software of today is "beta"? Why spend developer time debugging when you can make your clients do it for you.
Proof Positive... (Score:3, Insightful)
However! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should I upgrade? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm underwhelmed. From TFA:
A streamlined Start menu.
Streamlined how? They made it more like Win98?
Instant Search in every Explorer window.
So, I have to click once instead of twice to search? YAWN! TFA doesn't say whether the search itself is any better (but XP's search is so bad it would have to be)
Search Pane lets you organize information by author, date, or type of document.
If I'm getting so many results that I have to organize them, then the search still sucks. Desktop search is inherently different from internet search; on the internet, I'm looking for new information. In a desktop search, I'm looking for a particular document. I don't want to search through the results of my search to find the one document I'm looking for. If I tell it to look for "the one" I don't want every instance of every document with "the" OR "one" imbedded in the name, I want "THE ONE".
Windows Sidebar puts frequently used information and tasks right on the desktop. This feature will remind OS X users of that system's Dashboard feature.
Automatically whether I want it to or not, unlike 98's "send to" menu item that would send a shortcut to the desktop in 3 clicks? And, er, yeah I know it was an MSnbc article, but I don't think many Mac users are going to be switching to Vista.
Network Explorer puts all network connections -- like printers, other computers, and devices - into one centralized location.
As suspected, there will be a learning curve. MS can't design any software without changing where you have to look for stuff. How about putting network printers with local printers, like it is now? How is this an improvement?
Sync Center helps users manage all their devices from one place.
I'm not sure what this means, or if it's a good thing.
Tablet PC functionality is integrated into most versions of Windows Vista.
So... what?
Windows Media Center 11, also standard in Vista, includes live and recorded television, music, photos and videos.
I can get this now, with any OS, so long as I have a broadband connection. I really don't need fifteen gigs of sample files I'll never watch. When I watch a movie, it's not some random crap, I choose what to watch.
Improved Windows Media Player.
I use Winamp. WiMP phones home by default (or is one of the improvements that it doesn't?); WMA's DRM allows you to make a music file that will actually play yet is a virus. Rename it to MP3 and WiMP is teh only player that will open it. Did they fix this incredibly bad design flaw? And what could they possibly have done to make it as good as Winamp?
New power management features for mobile computers to optimize battery performance.
They fixed that XP bug. Nice. A hundred fifty bucks for a bug fix.
Windows Defender regularly scans and removes spyware and other unwanted software.
I already have spybot and three others. How is this an improvement? Wouldn't it have been better to write Vista to make it harder to catch spyware, than to bolt on an inferior product to catch this malware after the fact?
Classic Windows games, as well as several new ones.
Soo... I should upgrade to Vista so I can still play Solitaire? Huh?
I wonder why TFA doesn't say anything about the built in DRM I read about last year? Is it still in there?
I think I'll pass, at least until that program I can't live without and only runs on Vista is released. If any of you can give me some valid reasons to upgrade, I'm listening.
OMFG (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Article Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha ha.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure I agree.
You can put together a desktop computer with 1,000,000 different hardware configurations. Laptops are actually much less configurable ... hardware-wise.
Desktops need just as many drivers as laptops (if not more), and they are hardly "standardized".
You can get a generic Dell white box, or an Alienware Gaming Monster. Both desktops, very different computers.
Laptops are actually more standard these days, IMHO.
You are unlikely to have dual-7800 Ultra cards running SLI with an AMD X2 with Cool-N-Quiet, and Raid 0 in a laptop.
Desktops are far from standardized, and I don't see any reason why it would be easier to get Vista running on one.
Re:Maybe Not So Fair? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are a few subtle differences between an OS and a search engine:
-The amount of parameters input for a Search Engine, vs the number of hardware configurations available for a OS.
-Search Engines don't have to support running other applications
-Search Engines provide output in a uniform fashion, as HTML/Javascript. OS output has to vary by printing device, by display device, by NIC, by you name it. And as far as Browswer compatibility, its not even a noteworthy issue here. The subtleties in IE vs FF are well documented.
Those are just 3 off the top of my head. So before you spout off that Beta should mean "It works fine", realize that the scope of the comparision should be in similar fields. Show me MS Search beta not working, and google's beta search working. Or, show me Google's OS in beta working, but MS's Beta OS not working.
This reviewer is a moron... (Score:2, Insightful)
Same Experience with Ubuntu and my Winbook (Score:3, Insightful)
After my first boot, I plugged in my WEP key, and I was off to the races. Seriously, that's all I had to configure - everything other piece of hardware worked right out of the box - off a 750MB CD no less. Vista comes on a DVD, with enough room for every driver under the sun and it couldn't detect my wireless or integrated graphics or my wired NIC.
Re:Maybe he should insatall Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:Article Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope, I'm right there with you. See also the silliness of the BusinessWeek article from a few weeks ago where the reviewer chooses a laptop based on its theoretical upgrade to Vista down the road.
I've done the "put a newer OS on an older laptop". It's a real PITA and the only reason I did it was that Toshiba shipped this model with both Win98 or WinNT and I ended up with a Win98 through miscommunication. Fortunately, it (mostly) worked was because Toshiba had device drivers for this laptop.
But for the most part, putting a new Windows OS on old laptops is a fool's errand. Way too much custom hardware in these beasts and you'll spend a long time looking for drivers. If the laptop has been out of production for a year or more, very few manufacturers will go back and write drivers to make newer Windows OSs work on older hardware. There's simply no profit in it.
Apple does it because they control the hardware (it makes sense to upgrade to the various revisions of OS X). Upgrading to Linux is also possible but you also have to do a lot of research on what laptops have good Linux support. At least in the Linux camp, you have a dedicated group of developers who are interested in writing the drivers and making sure they work with the newer kernels.
Re:OS X...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind that it is Microsoft that likes to push "innovation" as something unique to Microsoft's environment. They use the term to induce fear of Open Source and they use it when comparing themselves to other competitors. It may be unfair to say Microsoft does not innovate at all. However, Microsoft is just as dependent on the environment around them for ideas as everyone else is. Much of what Microsoft does is not new and not innovation.
I do agree with your second statement. I believe that is where a lot of the Mac crowd's disdain comes from. Macs have a history of providing a truely unique and arguably superior environment to the market. Yet they were not market leaders. Little wonder Mac fans get irate.
A side note - Apple lost because IBM lost. When IBM lost control of its platform and it became a commodity hardware base, it was trouble for proprietary hardware outfits like Apple. What we're watching now is (possibly) the same market shift with software (and more specifically the OS).
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Laptops with their more specialized hardware (albeit there are fewer options to deal with) are mostly reliant on the laptop vendors for driver support, and I can tell you this: the vendors don't much care at this point about the upgrade path when Vista is still in beta. Even when it is released, current laptops may be difficult to install and support due to vendor disinterest. After all, they'd rather sell you a brand new machine with Vista preinstalled.
Still this author tends to echo the senitment of most computer users nowadays. People tend to dislike Linux and think it is hard to use because it is hard to install. Meanwhile, said users have never had to trudge through a Windows install from scratch themselves (Or they have only had to use restore CD's). Whenever they first have to they realize it's not particularly easy either. The only OS that really is easy to install in my experience has been the Mac OS, and the primary reason for this is because the OS vendor is the hardware vendor and they know ahead of the install exactly what hardware is in the machine. I personally think that people trying and failing to upgrade to Vista will switch a lot of people over to macs, but it also will simply cause a lot of people to throw away that $350 computer and just buy a new one instead.
Re:Article Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
You can, but getting a standardized desktop is a lot easier. An Asus NForce board with a NVidia video card, SATA HDDs, and an IDE DVD Writer will pretty much run anything you throw at it. Part of this is because it's a highly common configuration. The other part of it is that nearly all the hardware uses standardized interfaces that will work with most generic drivers.
Re:No problem here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Article Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just a site note of Ubuntu user... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Article Summary - Cheap Desktops NOT (Score:2, Insightful)
Vista is not going to be twice as stressful as xp.
If you can run xp well you can run vista well the only extra workload seems to be with the aero stuff (which needs a compliant graphics card to do the trasparencys and such).
PC's have been far over powered for all but games for some years now I'm not sure what you think vista would be doing to need atleast a dual core.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, then, Windows XP shipped 5 years ago. Ubuntu ships a new (free) version every six months. Ubuntu has better driver support. It happens to be because it ships more often. Maybe MS could learn something about "release early, release often"?
Happy? Or would you like to claim that there's some reason other than incompetence that Windows ships every 6 or 7 years and Ubuntu ships every half a year?
Re:Article Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
If you bought a CD of Windows XP 5 years ago, then yes, you can indeed say that it was released 5 years ago and that it is a valid reason for not supporting hardware that was released 3 years ago. However, if you buy a Windows XP CD today, it is a recent version of Windows XP, it even includes SP2, so it no longer is something that was released 5 years ago... at worst, it was released 18 to 24 months ago (I don't even remember when SP2 was).
Still... We installed a very fresh version of WinXP last week at the office, with that SP2 preloaded and all, on a 4 years old computer, and it still couldn't get a network connection without us downloading the drivers from another computer and then burning it to a CD (because network drivers these days don't fit on a floppy).
Microsoft really makes no effort at all in providing even generic drivers for hardware.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahhhhh, it's a "business class" computer we should be using now.
Is Vista a business OS?
What I see is a bunch of narrowing down of what the definition of a computer is ... to compensate for a possible lackluster showing of the Beta.
"Oh this isn't a computer, oh that isn't a computer, you'd have to be crazy to run the OS on this or that, etc, etc"
I mean, come on guys. We can redfine what a computer is down to very specific parts and even lot numbers of parts.
If the Beta is meant to run on a very specifically configured machine, then MS should clearly state as much so that people who are reviewing the product don't waste their time.
Your idea of a computer, and someone else's idea of a computer may be completely different.
And since laptop sales are currently outpacing desktop sales, the likelihood of Jane Soccermom considering her computer a "real" computer is more likely then her saying "No! That review is invalid because it wasn't run on a business class computer!!".
If you need a specific test on specific hardware disseminated to the publi as a whole (including almost every AOL users), don't send it to a mainstream outlet like MSNBC to report their findings.
And the reviewer said that Microsoft support helped him. Why didn't Microsoft tell him to abort the installation on a laptop, and obtain a "business class desktop" on which to test the installation?
It's beta, but it's not pre-Alpha.
Beta means that it's almost ready to ship, but that not enough people have had their hands on it to truly iron out all the bugs.
A Beta (or near beta) OS should work on most consumer computer hardware, of which laptops now make up the majority.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Windows XP shipped 5 years ago.
That's the problem, right there. Microsoft's operating system doesn't contain that many drivers, but that's because a new version hasn't come out for five years - but hang on, isn't that Microsoft's fault too?
If you walk to work and arrive two or three hours late, would your boss accept that you can't be bothered to drive a car, or aren't too fond of public transport? No, you'd get in trouble for it, and any excuses you make would be ignored.
Windows Vista is coming out four or five years late, and (to use my awful analogy even more) isn't even trying to run. Linux is throwing stuff at it from the top of the bus.
You can't complain that the rest of the world is moving too fast when you're the one being slow.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually this is a VERY GOOD TEST.
Many people are going to upgrade from XP to Vista and a lot of those people have notebooks.
It is hard to install is a killer and one of the things that is often used to complain about Linux.
Even with a desktop would he find the driver for the NIC? What about the video card? Suppose he got one of the new nVidia all in one motherboards with integrated video, audio, nic, and SATA?
I can tell you that when we installed Vista on our test machine we had a lot driver issues.
Our test machine was pretty standard. Gigabyte motherboard with an nVidia chipset and an nVidia graphics card. Your basic build it your self machine and it took days to get it working.
Maybe Microsoft needs to put ISOs of Windows in the internet so you download the latest version and install it with your old product code?
Re:Article Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
ast I checked XP even in safe mode had 256colors and 800x600 res with practically any video card. I'd call that some pretty amazing generic driver support
Isn't that just a case of supporting rudimentary VESA+BIOS?
Yes, you ARE insane! (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep one thing always in mind: Linux ships with all device drivers. And with no BSODs. People blasted 9x because it was so much more unstable than Linux. Now people blast XP because, if we consider only the "certified" drivers, it has worse support for hardware than Linux. How difficult would it be for Microsoft to have a decent set of updated hardware drivers?
We hear all the time from the Microsoft astroturfers that Linux has poor hardware support. XP is much worse. I once mentioned a particular problem I had, with XP bluescreening when a JVC camcorder was plugged into the USB port. They told me "but that model has no certified driver!". Well, then that model of camcorder is *not* supported by XP. And if the hardware is too old, XP has no drivers for it. I know because I have an old Adaptec PCMCIA SCSI card and a Genius scanner for which I could never find XP drivers.
Now you are saying that if the hardware is very new then XP doesn't have the drivers either. I know that too, because I have a Philips wide screen LCD monitor that I could never get working perfectly in XP, the drivers supplied in the CD aren't recognized by XP. The best I could get was a squashed 1600x1024 resolution, instead of 1680x1050. Should I blame Philips for that? In Linux it took me thirty seconds to get that monitor working perfectly, why is it so hard to get it working in XP?
If it's too old it doesn't work, if it's too new it doesn't work, if it isn't certified it doesn't work... I have a Dell desktop at work, a white box desktop at home, a HP laptop. All of them are dual-boot, XP+Ubuntu. In Ubuntu all the hardware I have works perfectly, with only one exception, an HP 3570c scanner which only works in some modes. Everything else, including the Adaptec SCSI card, the Genius scanner, the Philips monitor, and the JVC camcorder work perfectly in Linux, but not at all or with BSODs in XP.