From: Richard B. 

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:48:03 -0500, "Geo."  wrote:

>What would you pay for W2K refresh that made W2K run 25% faster? Laptop
>users might really go for that.

Just wondering how much speed would be noticeable?  Our main app as you
know is AutoCAD, I suspect we are more limited by other things than the
speed of the OS, although hyperthreading support would be appreciated.

>Remember the upgrade from 3.5 to 3.51? They made it faster, reduced the
>memory footprint, and added disk compression capabilities, things that
>allowed us to keep our hardware longer and so we saved money on hardware by
>spending money on software updates.

Naw, I was using OS/2, didn't start with NT until 4.0.  Saved lots more
money going that route. 

>Idea 2, ask the users what they would like to see in the way of improvements
>to W2K. I don't mean ask big corp IS departments what they want, I mean ask
>joe user what would allow him to work more efficiently, what annoyances he
>hates, etc.

Yep, instead of trotting out new features with that tired old marketing
cliche that 'our customers demanded it and we delivered!' Right-o.

>Hey here's a thought, what would you pay for a version of XP sans activation
>and copy protection and DRM and with the old manual recovery options added
>back in? You want to see a rash of people upgrading, removing stuff instead
>of adding it might just do it.

Well, I try not to let XP in except on the new laptops.  So I might
consider the upgrade in the first place.

>How about a version of W2K that boots and runs from CD like Knoppix? Use a
>USB ram drive for swap or whatever it needs to store between boots. Imagine
>a company full of computers where hard drive failures are not an issue and
>where users have no choice but to store things on the servers where they can
>actually be backed up..

Now *THAT* is a cool idea.  No drive failures, it would be a great option
for the server os too.  Think of the possibilities....!

>How about a version of server that boots to the command line where the GUI
>is optional and can be started and ended?

What specific advantage would you be looking for with this? Less overhead,
increased speed, and reliability?

>Geo. 

I don't think you should continue until MS gives you a contract. 

- Richard

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5