-- I am sorry carenath, but I feel very little of your post is accurate (the parts based on
-- fact anyhow, most is opinion which is perfectly respectable.)

Actually, very little of my post was based on hard facts. The differences between 98 and XP are facts, even promoted by MS as a reason to switch.

-- I don't see how doing this via a shell or a GUI makes a difference... you're not using
-- the shell or the GUI, you're using the application (whatever app you choose that is). All
-- a shell provides is a text based user environment for interfacing with various applications.

Well true. but as you noted, my opinion of which is better or offers more control still stands.
This is not meant as criticizim but just an opinon.

-- This is because XP actually has a security policy, unlike win98. To be able to simply load
-- the system with the security policy disabled could be catastrophic, this is why the DOS
-- (-like) safe mode has been replaced by the repair console, which does exactly what you
-- are saying.
-- Again, this has nothing to do with running a shell or not, it deals with loading the
-- system incrementally or alternately (whichever you desire).

Hmmm. could you please point me to a good tutorial on how to do what you mentioned above? Something that goes a little in depth but is still easy (relatively speaking) to understand?

-- If by "a bit more secure" you mean "makes permissions possible" then yes, I agree. I
-- don't see why you would have trouble using the repair console to access the drive.
-- You must not be properly informed about this process.

Nope, you're right. I'm not properly informed. When I bought the XP package, it had very little That I could find on how to do some of the things that you are mentioning. But... then again, maybe I didn't look in the right places.


-- You are as much as you can be. You can develop your own kernel drivers, you can run
-- any applications that you like, you can modify the security policy, you can modify
-- resource allocation, you can schedule all of these tasks, you can create and
-- remove services, you can create incident based actions, what more do you want? Why
-- do you think a more comprehensive shell will grant this?

Again, see above...


-- Again... a shell grants no new access! .....little less typing). It's about... why use
-- an interface within an interface?

Can't really argue against that point except to say that some of us like to type


-- Then don't argue when I say that you are anti-progress.

Again, we are not anti-progress, just anti-"screw things up until on-one understands them anymore," which seems to be what MS enjoys doing everytime they come out with a new version of their OS.



-- So let me get this straight... you have problems with spyware and viruses, yet you
-- are going to give the hypothetical users of this future Windows with a more
-- sophisticated shell a hard time for not wanting to be required to spend the extra effort
-- to secure a feature they don't want and will never use?

No, just don't expect me to like how people take something simple and screw it up until no-one can either understand or use it easily. Besides. Some of those hypothetical users might just like the extra shell. I mean, it really is a pain that I have to go thru about 3 to 5 different steps when I want to play an older game that happens to be written for DOS only.

-- Look it is fine to like shells, but don't argue that it isn't backward and don't argue that
-- it magically gives you more power. Doing so makes you wrong on both accounts.


I'm not stating either... I'm simply stating that some of us would welcome an alternative to the total GUI control and access.


-- cheers,

-- catch

-- Edited to be a little nicer, I was in a pissy mood on account of my Seagate issues.

Thank you for the courtesy. Much appreciated.

Carenath