Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual

The Dark Side of Windows XP

Despite all of the improvements, Windows XP doesn’t come without its share of controversy. Let us count the ways in which the new operating system has raised eyebrows and hackles.

Activation (Copy Protection)

Windows XP marks the first time Microsoft has ever copy-protected Windows, meaning you can’t install Windows XP on more than one PC from the same CD. If you have a desktop PC as well as a laptop, you have to buy Windows XP twice (Microsoft will give you only a 10% discount on the second copy). If you make the attempt, the second PC refuses to operate after 30 days.

How does it know that you’re being naughty? When you first install Windows XP, the operating system inspects ten crucial components inside your PC: the hard drive, motherboard, video card, memory, and so on. All this information is transmitted, along with the 25-character serial number on the back of your Windows XP CD, to Microsoft’s database via your Internet account. The process takes about two seconds, and involves little more than clicking an OK button. You have just activated Windows XP.

Note

If you don’t have an Internet connection, activation is a much more grueling procedure. You have to call a toll-free number, read a 50-digit identification number to the Microsoft agent, and then type a 42-digit confirmation number into your software. Do whatever it takes to avoid having to endure this fingertip-numbing ritual.

Later, if you try to install the same copy of Windows XP onto a different computer, Windows XP will check in with Microsoft and discover that the new machine’s components aren’t the same. It will conclude that you have tried to install the same copy of the operating system onto a different machine—and it will lock you out.

This aspect of Windows XP has frightened or enraged many a computer fan. In truth, though, it isn’t quite as bad as it seems. Here’s why:

• If you buy a new PC with Windows XP already installed, you don’t have to activate anything; it’s already been done.

• Copies of Windows XP that are distributed within corporations don’t require this activation business, either.

• No information about you is transferred to Microsoft during this activation process—only a list of the components in your PC make the trip. (Later in the installation process, you’re also asked to register your copy of Windows—a completely different concept. This time, personal information is transmitted to Microsoft—but this part is optional.)

• Don’t believe the Internet Chicken Littles who claim that activation will shut down your PC if you try to upgrade the memory or another component. In fact, you would have to replace four of the ten key components within a period of four months—your basic hardware-upgrade frenzy—before Windows XP stopped recognizing your computer. And even then, you could just call Microsoft to obtain a new activation number.

Tip

Your PC’s note to itself that Windows has been properly activated is stored in two little files called Wpa.dbl and Wpa.bak. (They’re in your My Computer→Local Disk (C:)→Windows→System32 folder.) If you ever decide to replace your hard drive, back up these little files before you remove your original drive. Copy them to a floppy, for example.

Then, after installing the new hard drive and installing Windows XP onto it, copy the Wpa.dbl and Wpa.bak files into exactly the same folder. Windows XP will be perfectly content that it’s running on a legitimate, properly activated computer.

Privacy Concerns

Microsoft is making more of an effort than ever to compile a massive database of its customers. There’s nothing particularly sneaky about it, though, because Microsoft collects this information only with your permission.

Here are three other times when you’ll be asked to send information back to Microsoft:

• During registration. As noted above, registration means “Sending your name and address to Microsoft just after starting up Windows XP for the first time.” Registration ensures that you’ll be on Microsoft’s mailing lists, so you won’t miss a single exciting Microsoft marketing message. Fortunately, registration is optional.

• After a crash or freeze. When things go really wrong with your software, Windows XP, like Office XP before it, seeks your permission to send a bug report back to the mother ship. No information about you is supposed to go along for the ride—only a description of your PC and some technical specs that describe what was going on at the time of the crash—although it’s technically possible for some scraps of your document to be included in the report.

  Microsoft collects these bug reports by the thousands. Its hope, of course, is that it will be able to spot patterns that help pinpoint the causes of these crashes.

• When you try to use one of the Internet features. Some of Windows XP’s most attractive features, including MSN Messenger and Web page publishing, require that you have a Passport—Microsoft’s form of Internet identification. All you have to reveal to Microsoft in this case is your email address. You can refuse, but then you won’t be allowed to use those features.

Microsoft swears up and down that it has no ulterior motives in compiling this data—but if it makes you nervous, just decline in each case.

Microsoft Data Formats

Microsoft makes no secret of the fact that it wants its own software technologies to predominate, especially when it comes to the Internet and multimedia. For example, the Java software required by many online banking and investment Web sites is no longer part of the standard Internet Explorer Web browser installation (because of legal squabbles with Sun, Java’s creator). Windows Media Player can’t understand QuickTime movie files or RealAudio files, either—and, in fact, can’t even turn your CDs into standard MP3 files.

Fortunately, you’ll find workarounds for all of these limitations (see Chapter 8 and Chapter 11).

UP TO SPEED Windows XP: The Buzzword-Compliant Operating System

You can’t read an article about Windows XP without hearing certain technical buzzwords that were once exclusively the domain of computer engineers. Here’s what they mean:

Preemptive multitasking. Most people know that multitasking means “doing more than one thing at once.” Windows has always been capable of making a printout, downloading a file, and letting you type away in a word processor, all at the same time.

Unfortunately, the Windows 95/98/Me version of multitasking works by the rule of the playground: The bully gets what he wants. If one of your programs insists on hogging the attention of your PC’s processor (because it’s crashing, for example), it leaves the other programs gasping for breath. This arrangement is called cooperative multitasking. Clearly, it works only if your programs are in fact cooperating with one another.

Windows XP’s preemptive multitasking system brings a teacher to the playground to make sure that each program receives a fair amount of time from the PC’s processor. The result is that the programs get along much better, and a poorly written or crashing program isn’t permitted to send the other ones home crying.

Multithreading. Multithreading means “doing more than one thing at once,” too, but in this case it’s referring to a single program. Even while your video editing program is exporting your movie, for example, you may be able to continue editing at the same time.

Memory protection. In Windows XP, every program runs in its own indestructible memory bubble—another reason XP is so much more stable than its predecessors. If one program crashes, it isn’t allowed to poison the well of RAM that other programs might want to use, as in Windows Me.

That doesn’t mean paradise—programs may still freeze or quit unexpectedly. The world will never be entirely free of sloppy programmers. But your PC itself will soldier on with its other programs unaffected.