# a little premature xp homework

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 0:37:05

Hi all,
We're not sure how soon we can do it, but I might be getting a new pc, mom says if she can't do it Christmas, maybe my birthday. Anyhow, I'm trying to find out as much as I can about xp as I can, to hopefully make the change from windows 98 to xp as painless as possible. I'm not having things transferred from one computer to another, because you have to hook the 2 computers together and use a wizard, and from what I've hea and installing things from scratch, so I will just have to redownload and install the programs I want back on the new computer. How many like xp, and how many don't like it? I can't do as much as I use to, because newer versions of chat clients won't work my windows 95/98 machine. My disk space is really low now, 400 mb. I have a 2.37 gb hard drive. It's sad it's come to this really, because the computer starts like it always did, and it will still connect to the internet, though I think my connection is getting slower and slower. I can't get on the vipconduit site, because ventrilo 2.2 won't work when I go into setup. I get that awful dialogue about a dinput.dll file not being found. I sort of wanted to get on there, mainly because they're competing with for the people, and I don't have any positive feelings about for the people anymore. I wish vipconduit were using ivocalize. 2 things I don't like about ventrilo, 1: there are no jaws scripts to tell you when someone comes in a room or leaves it. 2. you can't carry on private text conversations with anyone while people are doing their own thing in voice. That's the one thing I like about ivocalizeOf course, the people on vipconduit may be like the folks on for the people, but as it stands now, I can't even find out. I was reading in the help files in jaws about all the settings you have to change in order to make xp behave like 98, and it says you have to have administrator privileges to change some of these settings, I just don't understand that administrator privileges thing, it doesn't make sense to me. xp sounds complicated to me. If anyone feels like explaining it to me, I'd appreciate it,
thank you,
wonderwoman. rd, it's just as much a pain in the neck as installing and downloading

## Post 2 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 1:17:09

oops, some of that got a little garbled. What I was trying to say was, I've heard transferring everything from one computer to the other is a real pain. It isn't something I could do myself. I'll lose real player 8, and winamp 2.90, and guess I'd have to download realone player, which I'm a bit worried about.
wonderwoman

## Post 3 by Wraith (Prince of Chaos) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 2:35:00

Wonderwoman, XP is a dream in comparison to windows 98. I've experienced very few crashes with the xp operating system, whereas I used to always contend with computer failures with 98.
Many programs you currently use on 98 will also work on xp. You will, however, be unable to use any jaws versions below 4.0 on an xp system, so be forewarned.
If you desire the Realplayer application, you may attain Real Alternative (a link to it exists on www.whitestick.co.uk).
The bit about having administrator priveleges should not even apply to you, unless you network your computer (join it to a network of interconnected computers). Most computers come out of the box with the default user account set as admin, which is fine for home computing.
Quite a few changes are indeed requisite to a smooth interaction between xp and jfw, but these steps are detailed on both the freedom scientific website and on the training materials provided with JFW.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

## Post 4 by Witchcraft (Account disabled) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 4:14:36

I too love XP, and as far as transferring files, do you have a cd burner? If so there is your solution. Simply burn a data cd containing all the files you wish to keep.

## Post 5 by nikos (English words from a Greek thinking brain) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 10:33:52

Also memory sticks are goot for transfering imformation from one computer to another. Mine is about 256 mb or something but there are 500 mb and even 1 gb if not even bigger once.

## Post 6 by renegade rocker (I just keep on posting!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 19:13:22

One correction, there are ventrilo scripts available from www.jfwlite.com, and it's quite a nice change going from win98 to xp, and you'll be able to use windows messenger, that's included with it.

## Post 7 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 19:50:03

yes renegade, I know there are ventrilo scripts, but as far as I know, they don't tell you when someone comes in a room likeivocalize and chatterbox. For example, when I'm in a room, and you come in a room after I'm already there, I want a script that will say, renegade_rocker has joined the room, or as with chatterbox scripts, welcome renegade_rocker, and vice versa when someone leaves. Hi witch craft, no, I don't have a cd burner. I'm not a big music collector, and I've done most of my music collecting from radio to cassette, so I'm not sure how much I'd use one, except to download mp3 audio books from any free sight I could find them, and my dial up connection is too slow for that. Thanks wraith for volunteering to help.
wonderwoman

## Post 8 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 21:40:35

I think it's interesting that most blind people like xp, and some sighted people hate it. It seems to be sighted people in their 60's who don't like it. A 65 year old woman in australia told me you have to go half way around the world to get things done in xp, so that tells me there are more pages and options in xp. So far I don't think I've talked to a blind person who hates xp. All I know about xp is what I've heard inchat rooms, and on here.
wonderwoman

## Post 9 by ArtRock1224 (move over school!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 21:51:52

## Post 10 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 22:24:08

well from the way things seem, the more ram you already have, the more it can be upgraded. I started out with 32 mb of ram, and the man who upgraded it said it wouldn't go any higher than 98 mb. He tried several memory sticks before he found some that worked. since my mom's computer has 64 mb, hers could probably be upgraded to 128 mb. I noticed on the jaws 5.0 training cd, that some dialog boxes has clearer meanings. for instance, when the trainer was in the floppy drive and was demonstrating what would happen if you press enter on it if you don't have a floppy disc in the drive, it said, please insert a disc in the drive, where windows 95 and 98 just says, the drive is not accessible, and you land on the retry button.
wonderwoman

## Post 11 by Witchcraft (Account disabled) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 22:36:54

The thing with the memory has to do with what your processor and motherboard can take. Each motherboard is set to only take a certain few types, and trying to put something in it that won't work makes your computer not recognize the new memory; or worst case sanerio it could fry the motherboard. One confusion that might have happened is when memory sticks were mentioned. These are also called flash drives; if I'm not missing my terminology. They are sticks that you plug into a USB port; they may have other connections available, and you can use it like a floppy disk or writable cd. They go from 256 MB to I believe the highest I've seen is 2 GB. They're small and very handy. There is also the option of an external harddrive. I just got the equipment, and I love it. You can find out about external harddrives at any computer store. I personally recommend Comp USA. That's where I got mine.

## Post 12 by Big Pawed Bear (letting his paws be his guide.) on Monday, 19-Sep-2005 22:40:53

i will say this for win xp. the more ram you have the better. Also, something which ppl find better about xp is the file system it uses, ntfs. This apparently makes for faster searching and better storage. Other things you might want to take note of WW is that your old 98 drivers for programmes might not work under xp, though there is a neat little trick to get around that one, though how good it will be in the long run I don't know. Please, please please make sure you have plenty of ram, and oh yes, the newest version of jaws, jaws six, as you won't get anything else from dealers these days. cxp loves ram, and if you don't have enough, you'll know about it. xp, though, when all's said and done, is a great operating system.

## Post 13 by Jesse (Hmm!) on Tuesday, 20-Sep-2005 8:15:42

When I switched to XP in 2002, I didn't like it at first, but the more I used it, and got used to having a more secure operating system that was true 32-bit, I really started to love it! In fact, I'd never go back to a 9X operating system, and if a computer's not chunky enough to run XP, I put 2K on it, which is just about the same as XP anyway.

## Post 14 by renegade rocker (I just keep on posting!) on Tuesday, 20-Sep-2005 21:39:00

Actually when you switch to xp, ventrilo will then be able to tell you who's entered a room, thanks to text to speach sapi five, that's included with the opperating system, just make sure to set the correct options, like user enters channel text to speach radio button checked, and from then on you will get anounsments as to who enters a room on ventrilo.

## Post 15 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Tuesday, 20-Sep-2005 22:13:08

I used the sapi 5 voices, just to see what they were like, half afraid I'd lose speech, but I chose msapi 5 from the change synthesizer list, and a totally new set of voices emerged. xp users have Sam, Mary and mike, where I just have michael and michelle. If I ever did have to upgrade the ram in a new computer, we'd have to get someone to do it, because my mom and I aren't computer savvy. All I'm good at is navigating in menus, and some sites on the net, beyond that, I'm hopeless.
wonderwoman

## Post 16 by kool_turk (This site is so "educational") on Wednesday, 21-Sep-2005 0:00:40

Ventrilo also works fine without scripts. I don't use the scripts and it works fine.

## Post 17 by wonderwoman (I've now got the silver prolific poster award! wahoo!) on Wednesday, 21-Sep-2005 19:21:55

yeah but if I can ever get back on, I want to hear it announced when people come and go. Of course if the text to speech does that automatically, I guess you wouldn't need scripts for that. I think the scripts mostly just tell you who's talking and who isn't
wonderwoman