12/24/2023 0 Comments Audio loopback windows xpOne of the benefits of moving to the Windows 2000/XP platform is that such issues are gone for ever.Īnother fundamental area that particularly benefits musicians is the removal of Resource limits. Once you open two or three music applications in Windows 98 or ME you may see this message. Compare that with the situation in Windows 98SE, where in my experience an application crash nearly always offers just one solution, which is to press the hardware reset button, instigating a complete reboot of Windows, followed by relaunching each of your music applications, and resending any data to your soft synths and samplers. This means that even if one of your applications crashes badly, it won't take the whole machine with it. Fundamental Benefitsįor me, the single most important benefit from running Windows XP is that like its platform predecessors (Windows NT 4.), every application runs in its own section of 'protected' memory. This issue apart, the changeover to Windows XP largely revolves around performance and compatibility issues, so, exactly a year since my XP review, let's look at the current situation for the PC Musician. I can understand some people's reluctance to embrace Product Activation, but in practice I've not come across anyone who hasn't been able to authorise multiple boots of Windows XP on the same PC, and it's not as if you have to pass on personal details to Microsoft either - for most people it's a simple automated service on a 24/7 freephone number requiring you to type in a set of numbers to receive the code that unlocks your system permanently. While I firmly agree with the maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", then, the case for mass migration to XP is becoming stronger. Although it's still possible to install these on systems running Windows 98SE, no guarantees are given, and I expect this trend to continue as programmers discover the best ways to optimise their code for the newest XP platform, and don't want to compromise it in any way. Major developers such as Steinberg have already introduced new products like Cubase SX and even the Plex VST Instrument that specify Windows 2000 or XP as system requirements. Moreover, since virtually every new PC is now supplied with Windows XP pre-installed, 98 users will become more and more in the minority. Although existing applications and soundcard drivers for this platform should hopefully be mature and relatively bug-free by now, Microsoft will be starting to phase out support for it in July 2003, along with NT 4.0. The writing's now on the wall for 98SE users as well. In fact, it was so badly received that some PC magazines subsequently explained how best to uninstall it and return to Windows 98SE. You wouldn't be able to run this many applications successfully in Windows 98SE either, due to finite System Resource limits.Windows 2000 is similar enough in concept to XP to be worth considering as an alternative (see box), but ME is essentially Windows 98SE with some features from Windows 2000 bolted on, including its updated graphic look, and gave musicians particular problems with WDM drivers. Like Windows NT and 2000, XP runs each application in its own section of 'protected' memory, so that even if one crashes the remainder of your PC will carry on regardless. However, judging by a recent SOS Forum poll, there still seems to be a fairly even split between musicians running Windows 98SE and Windows XP, along with a smaller number of (albeit enthusiastic) users of Windows 2000, plus a few stragglers using the ill-fated Windows Millennium Edition. Since I first reviewed Windows XP in SOS February 2002, many people have moved over to it from other Microsoft operating systems. So should musicians who have been holding back now take the plunge and upgrade? It's been 12 months since we first evaluated Windows XP as a music platform, and it now seems to be the OS of choice for most manufacturers.
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