[CS-FSLUG] WinXP install review

[Frank Bax]

In the past, several people have shared their experiences with Linux 
installations.  I thought I'd do the same thing with WinXP.  We have 
several staff in the office running SuSE, but we also use some software 
that doesn't have Linux alternatives, so Windows is installed on several 
systems.  We already had two WinXP systems in the office so not all 
negative experiences were a surprise, but is documented here anyway.  We 
recently replaced four Win98SE systems with new units purchased from Dell; 
they came with so much "free" software on them that we did not want/need, I 
was forced to do a Wipe/Load right away.  My son told me about nLite 
software that can be used to answer many of the install questions ahead of 
time, so we used that to create a custom install disk.  It had a few 
glitches, but overall it worked well and I think we were ahead of the game 
in the end.  The plan was to not disable any security software included 
with WinXP and create user accounts that do not have Admin 
privileges.  It's now been one week since the initial installs were done.

OpenOffice, Firefox and Adobe reader were installed and used without 
issue.  IE was disabled.  An old version of Norton AntiVirus Corp Edition 
continues to download virus definitions, so we continue use it.

ADP payroll software (from a Canadian Bank) logon procedure complains 
if  C:\WINDOWS\ADPWIN.INI is not writable (although it appears the real 
issue is write access to WINDOWS directory).  Program must be run as Admin.

Kyocera-Mita KM-3035 network printer, scanner, copier, fax.  Cannot print 
unless user is Admin.

Kyocera Scanner File Utility can be installed as service; but when this is 
done, scanned files cannot be saved to network share (local only).  When 
not installed as service, remote shares can be used; but user must always 
be logged on for system to work (user startup folder is used).

Adagio financial package.  We were forced to change Language settings from 
Canada to USA in order for cheques to print properly aligned.  At this 
point, all user accounts were already Admin, so we haven't tested this 
software in this regard.

I don't know if these problems belong to each vendor or Microsoft, but I am 
certainly surprised that a platform as old as WinXP still has this many issues.

Frank