Microsoft WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION ( E85-02665 )

Rating:
Summary: Not quite there yet
Review: A year ago I bought two machines at the same time. One was an Apple Powerbook running Mac OS X Panther. The other was a premium, designed-for-XP machine with a 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and a 200GB drive - no expense was spared. The Mac laptop was running beautifully within an hour and has given me excellent service since, under rigourous conditions. It took me eight maddening days, assisted by a stack of books, the collected wisdom of the Internet, Microsoft support, and several trips to my dealer, to finally get XP running. An no, it wasn't a hardware problem.

Lest you think I'm clueless about computers: I have an B.Sc honours degree in computer science, graduate degrees in mathematics, and I've been using, administering, and programming into Microsoft operating systems for 20 years.

I'm reminded of the proverbial "Bone-button soup" story - a beggar claims he can make a beautiful soup from a magic button that he owns. Everyone wants to see this impossible feat, so they watch as the beggar begins to simmer his button. "Not bad", he eventually says, tasting the boiling water, "but a pinch of salt would bring out the flavor". In the same way he persuades the crowd to contribute some onions, a few potatoes, carrots, beets, a marrow bone... So it is with XP. By the time you've bought and installed your virus scanner, system utilties, backup software, a working web browser, a mail client, etc., you might as well have bought a real operating system.

If I didn't absolutely need XP for the occasional client, there's no way I'd bother. If you're a small business, my advice is this: steer clear of XP. It's going to take a big chunk off of your bottom line.

Rating:
Summary: Service Pack 2 is Terrible
Review: I just recently upgraded my computer from xp pro service pack one to service pack 2, and i totally regret it. Service pack 2 hardly ever inializes the proper drivers for anything including games. It also keep asking me to activate my copy long after i installed it. I had to install a patch to get around that problem. I still have to do a system restore every month just so i can keep using my pc. I would not recommend service pack 2 to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Windows XP rocks, you might not need professional!
Review: If you're reading this. You're thinking of buying Windows XP Professional Edition here are a few things to keep in mind.

First thing is, you might be able to get away with buying just the upgrade edition. The upgrade edition allows you to do a full install. It just asks you for the CD of a previous version of Windows. Also remember you can download service pack two from the Windows update web site. So no need to buy it integrated with XP.

These are what I consider the minimum system requirements:

256 MB of RAM. I have found is adequate more equals better.
500 MHz or higher will do.
7200 rpm hard drive will help a lot.

If you're running Windows millennium edition, or 98 upgrade now the stability is vastly improved. Gone are the blue screens of death.

Frequently asked question: is Windows XP Pro better than home edition?

Windows XP Pro has a more high-end networking features that most home users will never miss or would even know were missing. So for most users Windows home edition is fine. They both are based on the same code and are almost identical.

And the price differences are drastic and deftly not worth it in my opinion unless you need these networking features.

If you're thinking of upgrading from Windows 2000, I did, because I like the GUI interface better. But Windows XP is as stable as Windows 2000. So it's your call.

The plug-and-play ability of Windows XP is totally great! Windows XP will by default find most drivers for video card sound cards, network cards, etc. that is such a bonus gone in the days of having to search for CDs with drivers.

I recommend upgrading to Windows XP be it professional or home edition. It is a great operating system

Have some fun and get it done