Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy the upgrade, buy the complete version
Review: I'm not completely computer illiterate, but I get terribly impatient when things don't work. After two years of Microsoft's incredibly unstable Windows ME, I was ready for a change. However, I made a mistake--and got ripped off--purchasing the XP home edition upgrade. One of the problems is that not all the ME components get replaced with the upgrade edition, and so this affects XP's reliability. The other problem is that XP is designed for a hard drive formatted for an NTFS file system, as opposed to a FAT32 format, which is what previous versions of Windows use. (I may have expressed that incorrectly, but the point is that XP is designed for a differently configured hard drive.) The upgrade edition doesn't provide the option of reformatting the hard drive, because it's designed to be layered on top of what you already have. To make a long story short, nothing worked very well, even after repeated attempts to install. The advice is to wipe the hard drive, install the full edition of XP from scratch (reformatting the hard drive for NTFS, which the full version will do for you), and then reinstall all software from scratch. It's time consuming, but the system will work much better.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good indeed
Review: In this review, I want to point out some stuff I found to be the most interesting about this version of Windows. Firstly, I would like to say that I have NEVER been a Windows believer, I have hated it ever since I first got to use it. The unresponsiveness, the horrible looking interface, the MS DOS background that was so noticeable, "Critical Stop"s that didn't seem have a reason... you get my point. What's more, I was always jealous of someone who had a Mac, the beautiful hardware and GREAT OS (I am talking about OS 9) seemed like something I would never get in the wintel world.
In what can be described as the last opportunity I was giving Microsoft, I bought Windows XP in complete disbelief. I booted my PC with the installation CD, and performed a "clean" installation (you erase your hard drive completely, then you install Windows, it works much better than "upgrading"). The process itself took quite a long time (close to an hour, but I do have a slow PC), but when it first booted, and greeted me with the nice piano sound, I found myself smiling, AT A MICROSOFT PRODUCT!! I started loading my software right away, and EVERITHING worked.
I forgot to plug my old HP 600 printer while installing Windows, and to my surprise, installing it was just as easy as it is on a Mac. I turned the printer on (my PC was also on of course), and a minute later, WITHOUT ME TOUCHING A "NEXT" BUTTON ON A WIZARD OR ANYTHING, a balloon popped out of the tray saying my HP 600 printer was ready for use: AMAZING!
The interface is nice, not as cool as Mac OS X 10.2, but not bad at all, and it is fast.
Stability-wise, this must be the best Windows version yet. I HAVE NEVER got a system hang up yet (in 6 months time!) and performance is surprisingly good on my 350MHZ PC, I am not saying it's a speed demon, but it is painless for surfing, emailing and doing normal stuff (I am surely not rendering a 1 hour 1600x1200 pixels 3D video on this PC :^)
To sum up, I want to say I DO RECOMMEND this Windows version, and you generally won't need the professional edition, but do a net research. Compared to Mac OS X? Well, this version of Mac OS looks more like Windows in fact, and although it has the super-mega-uber cool factor, Mac OS just doesn't feels as "Mac" in my opinion as the old OSes used to. PC hardware may not be as beautiful, but it is POWERFUL. Many will tell you that you don't need that kind of power, and it may hold true for some cases. Just rest assured that if you do go the Windows XP way, you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Whats on the Inside?
Review: Although the hype-up that Microsoft has given its operating system windows xp was huge, I think windows ME has so much more to offer.For one thing, XP is a control freak - by this I mean it will not let you install drivers for example if they have not been approved by MICROSOFT QUALITY STANDARDS. ...the drivers I tried to install came with the hardware!! I have found XP to be prone to crashes, and being a moderately experienced computer programmer and security expert, I have found many many flaws in its user interface. If you want a top-quality product, choose windows ME.
Rating: 
Summary: Am I the only one noticing the 2K version of BSOD?
Review: I just read through many of the reviews that claim XP doesn't crash and is rock solid reliable. I did this after having just experienced my 2nd crash today. Well, I'm stumped because, while XP performs marvelously for routine, (read: light) usage, I get 9X'ish crashes when I throw some serious processing at it. The new "BSOD", or blue screen of death, is now more of a "grey hiccup of aggravation". After a crash, a little grey box pops up and says "you have chosen to end a non-responsive program. Would you like to send an error report to MS?" I must see this box 2-3 times a day, no kidding. When it really has a processor brain-freeze, it just completely reboots, w/o warning. These things are a normal occurrence for me. This is on a clean install, up-to-date system. I've seen it with other systems as well. Many of my friends hate XP for this reason, but I've learned to live with it, just as I did with all its predecessors. Other than that, I really like a lot of the other features, and pretty much all the new toys and MS add-ins are XP-only, so it's worth the upgrade, (if nothing else), to avoid becoming obsolete. It just gets my goat that many people are constantly touting how stable it is, and I routinely see otherwise. Stability is OK, but not as reliable as many would have you believe.
Rating:
Summary: After a year struggling with MS ME, this was a life saver!
Review: MICROSOFT XP HOME EDITION UPGRADE saved the life of an innocent notebook computer!!!! If you are deciding whether or not to take a sledgehammer to your Microsoft ME system, have heart!!! My husband was ready to incinerate his notebook because he thought he had bought a lemon. Well, he had bought a lemon, alright. It was not the hardware but the Operating System which came with it: THE WORST OPERATING SYSTEM KNOWN TO US COMPUTER GEEKS: MICROSOFT MILLENIUM EDITION. Ease your mind... Remove your frustrations... Just do it! Get rid of ME and install this economical upgrade!
Rating: 
Summary: No more blue screen crashes!
Review: hehe I am glad I upgraded, as the system is very stable...much better than the Win 98se I had before.
Rating: 
Summary: Released far too early.
Review: I'm reminded of the children's rhyme, with XP: when it is good, it is very, very good - but when it is bad, it is horrid. It's straightforward, fast and reliable, but here the compliments end. According to documentation received, it's provided with "a full set of drivers". Improbable, I thought, and I was right. It's rejected one of my peripherals after another - including those of the same brand name as the CPU itself, and including a scanner (HP) supposedly compatible with XP. An expensive helpline was mystified, and the problem remains unsolved. For three days, I had to shut the PC down manually. My cordless keyboard and mouse combination partly works - the keyboard, but not the mouse. Try to download drivers at your own expense: it can be slow, and some appear not to exist, including Iomega Zip drives (100 Mb). I like what does work - but far more should work, and with far less difficulty. The conclusion: XP was released too soon and hopelessly incomplete. But that a new PC had it preinstalled, I'm not sure I'd have bothered. Thanks for almost nothing, Microsoft.
Rating:
Summary: Great!!!
Review: Received order in a timely fashion and is in new condition.
Rating:
Summary: Easy
Review: Easy to install even if it was a bit time consuming (over 90 minutes) only problem was with my isp (comcast) their help desk was no help. I clicked on setup help and did it all myself fixing the problems.....
Rating:
Summary: Why does everyone hate XP?
Review: I've had XP for a while and I'm very happy with it. It's nice to have customized settings for each person in the family. My only problem giving a 4 not a 5 was that it kept wanting to use the phone modem to dial for registration. I finally had to register over the phone. It would not recognize my high speed cable connection. Also when it has errors and it wants to report them to Microsoft, it tries to dial, which doesn't work. I finally got it to connect and download updates. It also is slow to save customized settings and switch from you to a different user. My computer doesn't have the RAM I'd like, and this is likely the problem, not an XP problem. Otherwise, it seems like a great product!
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