TUAW in Firefox in XP Home on an iMac Core Duo on TUAW

Good post, but for the love of god, don't use the GooglePack!

That thing's an infection waiting to happen. It's ridiculously unreliable.

I would ordinarily have alternatives to suggest, here, but since I've not been a Windows user for a while now, I'm not quite sure which anti-virus is the best right now, but it seems Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is still doing great (got a mention above, too).

Of course it's fast just after the install - there's nothing else on it but the OS. When you start installing your programs, that's when it gets slowed down like the lab machines you used to work with. This happens to all computers, even macs.

About Google Pack - I like about half of it (Picasa, Picasa Screensaver, Norton AV, and of course Firefox), but think the other half is bloat. The only other essential downloads I can think of are vlc and winAmp.

To the people who have install WinXP on their Intel Macs:

Can you use an Upgrade version of Windows XP, or do you have to use the full version? I have an old copy of Windows 98 & Windows ME & Windows 2000 that would allow me to upgrade, but don't want to have to spend the extra $100 if I don't have to..

Forget the google pack. Visit windowsupdate.microsoft.com - get all your critical updates and look close at the optional ones. Keep visiting installing, and restarting until there are 0 listed in critical. (As some optional updates might trigger new critical updates. Yeah-I Know) Turn on automatic updates.

Download and install the following elements of the Google pack seperately from their own repective websites:

Adaware SE Personal www.lavasoft.com
Mozilla Firefox (use this as your default browser) www.mozilla.com

Download the Following as well:

AVG Free Antivirus free.grisoft.com

Microsoft Windows Defender (The new name for Microsoft Antispyware)-
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

14.

That's the same question I was just going to ask.

Seems like the way to go is to boot load this mess of an OS on a seperate or external Harddrive because of hard drive space concerns. Question is, is that possible right now under BootCap?

#13 stated, "Microsoft Antispyware Beta- as far as im concered this is the best and only antivirus you need to be safe on the net"

It should be noted that Microsoft Antispyware Beta is NOT anti-VIRUS software, but anti-SPYWARE software. There is a HUGE difference. I'm sure that's what you mean though. ;)

But as far as Windows anti-spyware software goes, the microsoft beta is one of the best...believe it or not.

Dang, why would you want to ugly up your Mac with that? Seriously though, I'm running Virtual PC on my 1GHz TiBook and have to turn off all the "eye candy" (more like eye stabby) to optimize the speed. Even then, I've given up and just use Win2K when I have to.

I wonder if this is a disincentive to all those loser web designers who create IE-on-the-PC-only sites--something especially infuriating to me.

"I already activated this copy of XP though... how does that whole business work?"

I'm assuming you meant you activated the copy on the Mac, then you wiped it out and want to reinstall/reactivate. In that case, you should be fine... Microsoft should be able to tell you're reinstalling onto the same machine and just let you activate again. I just did that same thing last night on my MacBook Pro.

Now if you meant you activated that copy on another machine and then want to activate it on your mac as well... well... can't help you there. ;)

Has anyone had a chance to run benchmark tests..? I would want to run SolidWorks in XP, so I'd like to know how that ATI graphics set performs under XP.

But there's one thing you don't explain in your article :)
You write that you installed World of Warcraft, but how does is run under Windows XP on an IntelMac?

Does it run as good as installing the Macversion? Because if that's true, then we'll be able to play decent games on a Mac (D&D and such)!