Using your personal computer

 

Hilton Head Island Computer Club

Windows XP

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WinXP will tell you all about it upgraded graphics, audio and video capabilities which is where we all are going, right?  It is about two years since I first began to use a CD burner and now use it all the time.  At that time it was a 2X2X24 and now I am beginning to use a 24X10X40 to do the burning and with CD-R in the 25 to 50 cents range without a special it is an invaluable tool. 

 

The latest software that I was using was Roxio Easy CD Deluxe Creator ver 4.x and it was able to do audio, use CD-R and CD-RW for digital data.  This software is not compatible with Win XP but there newest version is but would cost about $80 to upgrade.  However Roxio is the provider to Microsoft for the burner software that comes with Win XP.  At first I was unhappy as Win XP will not read the UDF format for the RW type and sometimes would not read a CD-R made in other version of Windows.  I am now using the burner from Win XP for all my needs and am very happy with the results. 

 

When you place a CD in Win XP in either a regular CD drive or in a burner, a action selection dialog comes up.  If the CD is an audio or one with pictures you are given a number of choices or take no action. Win XP attempts to guess what you want to do.  However the real issue is what does your burner do with CD-RW and CD--R disks.  Let’s start with the RW type, if it has data from another OS/software you probably will not be able to read it.   It can be erased and then is useable in Win XP for writing to.  The procedure is to copy a file(s) to the drive and then using the file menu in Explorer you can write to the disk those files.  You can write files to the drive at any time and then write them to the disk as long as you have not used up all the space available on the disk.  This disk is readable in any multi read CD (most newer CD have this feature).  You cannot erase files on this type disk but you can always erase the whole disk to start over.  

In the case of the R type CD when you put it into the drive a message comes up asking if you want to make it writable.  Yes will allow the transfer of files to the disk in a similar manner to the RW type.  If you remove it from the burner drive and put it into another CD it will be readable because it is always in the proper format as in the case of the RW type.  I caution in the case of the R type to right click on the burner drive and use the eject command to take the CD out.  I have hung up so that I could not get the CD to open to release the disk.  In that case restart the computer and push the CD open button as the computer is starting to get your disk.  But the good news is you can continue to use the remaining space to copy additional files proving a very inexpensive approach for backing up, etc.. .  This will not work for audio CD making.

 

Currently I have been using Win XP_P for the past few weeks as my only operating system.  I have had only one crash caused by a CD-RW failing and have had the system running continually.  I do not feel a need to restart my computer to recover systems resources and operate a number of programs concurrently with no apparent lost of speed.  My computer is currently set up with one user as computer administrator and using the welcome log on approach.  Because I have also selected to not have a password with the one user, I am logon automatically into my home network workgroup.  If I had more users I would be offered a selection at logon and any or none of the user could use passwords.   The welcome screen logon permits fast switching between users but does not allow logon switching to the administrator.  Changing to the Ctrl-Alt-Del mode of logon permit more control of users, groups and controlling permissions. 

 

Talking to other users and my own personal experience with  the WinXP operating system is that it is a giant step forward for users.  Most of those users and myself have the operating system installed in a new computer and this greatly reduce compatibility issues.  As a final comment for those of you that have concerns about Windows Product Activation I can tell you it is not a big problem.  You do not have to register when you activate your copy of Win XP.  Further, I use my copy on my previous computer and verified that it would work for me and then moved the OS to my new computer.  Yes I did get contacted by Microsoft and in about a five minute talk to their representative I had a new activation and no problems.