Rating: 
Summary: XP IS BETTER THAN ME
Review: XP loads up much faster. It (so far) appears to be more stable. At least I can run multiple programs without having to worry about the computer crashing or a blue screen of death. I don't like the new START menu, though. All Windows ME owners should upgrade.
Rating: 
Summary: The best OS Microsoft ever made to date
Review: I really love this OS.After having used Win98SE for over 1,5 year I'm so happy with this since it came on the market in october 2001 !! I'm running my network 24/7 and all computers use the XP-home version with the LINKSYS cable router.
At first (with W98SE) the systems crashed more and more frequently after being online.
Where it began with one time a day, it ended with one time every hour... No problems with XP though!! It just keeps running on all our computers 24/7 ever since Oct.2001 Absolutely RECCOMMANDED !!
Rating:
Summary: the TEENAGE pov
Review: All my life I've had to put up with a father who LOVED gadgets. And every few years he would buy a new computer. I soon learned to love the computer and eventually we started to keep our old "new" computer when we bought a new one. On our newest computer (an amazing Dell) we have Windows XP. I know that my opinion about XP may not seem useful to you. After all I am a high school student who couldn't tell you a damn thing about all the techincal junk. But I do know that I love it and maybe knowing that I love it can show you that your kids would love XP too. Lately my dad's been yelling at me to use my computer instead of his new one, but that hasn't stopped me. XP loads up amazingly fast and can do anything our old comp did, but better. It's great for working on school stuff, listening to music, and surfing the web. I love how I can custom design my desktop...I don't have to worry about other people yelling about my "stupid" pictures on it. And I'm happy to say that it's only frozen once and it had never caused any other major problems. XP is great, and if you ask me, very worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Makes Windows ME look like a piece of TRASH!
Review: I just upgraded my operating system from WinME to WinXP and it has opened my eyes to the real computer world! Twice in a year and a half since I upgraded from Windows 98SE to Windows ME, ME dumped my USB ports. After a week working on the problem, I was able to restore the ports the first time. But then ME dumped the ports again and everything I did and the advice I received from Microsoft and other sources did not fix the problem. A friend told me that if I upgraded to XP, my USB problems would be solved. Man, was he RIGHT! Not only did XP get my USB ports working, it increased the speed of my computer, has made surfing the Internet so much easier and has added enhancements to the programs I have on my computer that makes them seem like brand new programs. The only problem I have with XP is that I have to purchase software upgrades for my UMAX scanner and my DVD-ROM. But, I can handle that, as long as XP keeps the USB bugs from coming back! XP.. YOU ROCK!
Rating:
Summary: The best Windows OS I've used
Review: I've had a computer since '88, it was a MacSE, then I moved to PC's, DOS and the Windows scene. Windows 3.0 was our first system running on a 386 DX/40, looking back it was unstable as the Titanic. We waited a long time before we decided to buy XP home but once SP1 came out, I felt it was time, that plus the announcement that microsoft would no longer support security for any of the other Windows systems. Windows has always been a "set price" kind of thing, you can still buy Win98SE for $...and it was hard for me to spend [money]- on an OS that I didn't know would work.
I watch a lot of TechTV and when the crew of the Screen Savers (except the Mac users) said that they only use WinXP, I made my mind up and on that day, Amazon.com had it on sale, $... and a rebate, so I snatched it up, I did a lot of researching to make sure my system would run it and I showed only ssome minor software incompatibilities, nothing I couldn't do without.
XP is the toughest, fastest, most foolproof OS out there IMHO. I don't have to reboot a few time a day, I don't have to shut down and restart when a program crahses. When a program crashes, it records it in a "mini-dump" then gives you the option to send it to Microsoft or not.
The only program I've seen XP have a problem with is Roxio's Easy CD creator 5.0 platinum, it causes XP to hang so I have to shut down and start it up again. One of the good things is, you no longer have to purchase Norton Utilities because other than a virus checker, there are very few thingss that Norton has that XP doesn't inlude on it's own. Another great thing about it is, if you still want to use your old Windows 98, you still can, you just put it on C: drive and XP installs on D: drive and gives you automatic selection over which system to use.
This is one of the best software purchases I've ever made.
Rating:
Summary: Be glad
Review: I've got to hand it to Microsoft this time around. I started using computers with Windows 3.1, and I remember the day that Windows 95 and 98 revolutionized the way people used personal computers. Off with the DOS blinders and on to a prettier interface. Unfortunately, usability and trustworthiness suffered at this fork in the road. I got fed up with Windows 98 about a year ago and upgraded to Windows 2000 - and wow, what a difference; then, when I purchased a new computer, wound up with Windows XP Home Edition. This new operating system is a must-have for every computer user. If you're a techno-geek, take a look at the Professional version, which, as far as I know, targets the same group as Windows 2000 did (and still does, I suppose). Anyway, as for the Home Edition (which is all I can really speak for), It's incredibly stable, easy-to-use, aesthetically pleasing, and fresh. I like the new interface, which is basically the same as older versions of Windows, but with more colors, and playful texture mapping that gives the computer a relaxed aura instead of some flashback to the dreary, cold, sterile office cubicle (whew...). There are a few concerns that I've heard from most people, such as hardware and software compatibility among older versions, and registration. Although I don't use a wide array of software - in fact I stick entirely to Office XP applications - I do have a few games and accessory programs that I installed on Windows XP without any problems. So, I'll admit to having limited experience in this area, but, my limited experience has been great. Hardware is one aspect of registration that I dislike. I totally understand Microsoft's philosophy on product registration to avoid piracy, but, I'd personally be ticked if I had to replace my network card for school and then learned that my software had been "turned off." So far I haven't had to mess with new hardware; I pray I never have to. The reason that this happens is because, upon registration, Microsoft takes a snap-shot of your system configuration. If this changes for whatever reason, and Microsoft determines that YOUR software (and its respective ID number) is now running on a DIFFERENT computer (that doesn't match your previous hardware profile), they'll cry piracy and shut down your software, causing YOU to go crying back to them, on the phone (God forbid) and convince them that you're a decent person and, by golly, just wanted a faster modem. Yeah, registration is a bug in my ear. But as long as you don't do anything illegal, it shouldn't even cross the mind of the average user, or at least, not with much consequence. I hope that Windows XP is around for a long time, because I think it's the platform of choice for any user, or at least, it should be. So, 5 stars for Microsoft cleaning up their act.
But 4 stars for playing Big Brother.
Rating:
Summary: Pro version maybe be better....
Review: i am very disapointed with this version. It is stable, doesnt crash ofthe, performs very well a lot of times. but its the little things that bother me. for example when a program crashes. it takes it 10 seconds to even a minute before it can close it. even if you have turned off error reporting. this is very disapionting becasue in 2000 Pro, when a program stops responding, and you end it, it ends immediately, no lag, no hessitation. sure the XP looks nice and pretty, while that might appeal to the average user that doesnt know what the service icon is in the control panel, it has to perform better than it looks, sadly it doesnt. you can customize it to look and feel the way you want it to, that is a big plus. another great feature that 2000 and 2000 Pro lack is the ability to run a little feature called MSCONFIG. this utility alows you to configure everything to what programs run when the computer is runing, to telling the computer which programs may start when the computer starts. it also tells you which programs are supose to run when the computer starts. this was a feature that was left out of the 2000 versions for some reason. this is especially useful when you dont want some programs to run because they serve no purpose. this utility also alows you to configure the config.sys file, the system.ini win.ini SERVICES, and boot.ini. BE WARNED: do NOT tamper with this utility unless you know exsactly what you are doing. another feature that i like is the restore utility. it "takes pictures" if your hard drive on a regular basis by default so that if something goes wrong, or you messup, say you erased a critical file, it can let you back up to the last point where your computer ran smoothly. this is very helpful for those that like to do dangerous experiments or if you just did soemthing you shouldnt have. or it just messed up. while it has a good features, its still doesnt live up to 2000 Pro's stability. maybe if you could have the stabilty of 2000 and the features of XP, you might have a great system. this program is ideal for home users but the Pro version may be a little more stable.
Rating:
Summary: Microsoft windows XP
Review: I think XP is really great! To the people who have incompatibility issues, they are NOT irreconciable in most cases. You ALWAYS have to get the drivers for your older hard and software when you upgrade your operating systems. Many times, these are totally free and downloadable online. Check it out. This happened to us when we went from Windows 95 to 98, it's pretty standard. Such is the "progress" of computers!
Rating:
Summary: Love it
Review: Windows finally created a quality successor to Win98 SE. It is intuitive, easy to configure, and *** hurray *** stable - no more blue screen of death. The wizards, should you choose to use them, work well. Additionally, it does a good job of configuring and managing hardware as well as, for the first time for a windows product, ram. It is a bit pushy, but you can configure it using tools embedded inside, write your own, or download some from the internet. It "hides" some utilities, but they're there. Overall, I am extremely please with Win XP Pro. I'm sure the home edition is just as capable, although I haven't used it. PS. For you Pro-UNIX people - I use UNIX (Sun Solaris), and still like WinXP Pro a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Solid and reliable
Review: I've had the XP Home Edition for 11 months and it has been extremely stable. I say that with confidence as I have abused it every way I can think of (and that's a lot) and it's almost impossible to hang. When a program does hang, usually all that's affected is the one application and you can close it and start over. I've been able to get XP to hang occasionally by waiting until the hard disk is out of virtual memory and starts doing a lot of disk swapping, and then launching several large programs when it's obviously already out of both physical RAM and virtual memory, and very occasionally I've hung the system that way. But I was intentionally trying to mess with it when it was already out of memory, and usually even then I don't succeed in causing a problem. Usually all it does at that point is slow down to a crawl for maybe 30 seconds, but then it recovers and things revert to normal. At 128 megs of RAM, I don't have a lot of memory anyway, but even so I rarely have memory issues. I'm about to upgrade to 512 megs, which should help. This stability is perhaps not surprising since XP has the Windows 2000 kernel under the hood, which was combined with the slicker XP GUI interface. One big advantage of XP is the file and directory management enhancements in the GUI are very useful. I no longer need two instances of File Explorer open to manage files and directories anymore. My only complaint is that sometimes the CD audio stutters a bit. This is a known problem and I need to get the updates for the audio CD player. Other than that, it's been remarkably stable and reliable. Overall, a great OS that has finally reached a degree of maturity in terms of performance and reliability.
| 
