Rating: 
Summary: A disk full of DEMOS
Review: OK, I knew that there were only three themes. That was OK. I knew that there were only three games. That was OK too. BUT I didn't know that the games were DEMOS. You have to pay independent companies for the codes for the full versions. You even have to pay to get a decent amount of fish in the fish screensaver. Come on Microsoft this is ludicrous.
Rating:
Summary: Afraid I have to agree with the majority here.
Review: Bought it; wish I could return it. Too much "$" for too little "!".
Rating:
Summary: Minus Marketing
Review: Simply put, this product is much like its predecessor Plus98 (anyone remember that stroke of genius?), with its list of demo programs and practically useless screen savers/"themes". Sure, the CD player was nice if you didn't want to search for a free one that was a prettier and more functional, and who could argue the zip folder utility wasn't cool (when it didn't eat data or crash explorer, that is)? But then, there was that pesky price tag... It was a problem then, and is a problem now. You pay for a suite of programs, which entitles you to some pretty pictures and some flashy screensavers, then some demos (demos are marketing, by the way), and some product "enhancements". Product enhancements are really what should have been included in the original version but weren't for whatever reason. This is a problem. (The Money) for the XP Home Edition, (the money) for PlusXP, which is 2/5 the price of the entire program. Do you receive nearly half the benefits of the plain-jane XP OS out of PlusXP? If you're still in doubt, let's break the thing down into parts: Demos:
Imagine paying money to demo a piece of shareware, or to test drive a car, or to go look at a prospective home. Imagine paying money to the taste tester folk proffering the new deli meats on some rainy Sunday at the local supermarket. In the rest of the world, demos are a "try before you buy" not something you should ever have to pay for. Three cheers for Microsoft Marketing. Genius. Non-demo programs:
There are, that I can see, only two additions included with PlusXP you can't freely get on the Internet: speaker enhancements and the voice control of Media Player (I'm not going to go into the horror of converting MP3 files into WMA and why it's a Bad Idea). Speaker enhancements should have been included in the OS release since XP is all about the ease and brilliance of it's audio and video handling. So that leaves Media Player voice control. Nice, but not worth the 2/5 price tag of the entire OS. Fluff:
OK, so that's not really fair. But I'm not sure if I would call skins and themes "Art" either. Again, I'm forced to look at benefit compared to cost. Is it worth the (money) for pretty themes and being able to tell Media Player to play your entire collection of Neil Diamond (when just a few mouse clicks will get the same result)? All in all, it's a good marketing strategy and that's it. This isn't a bad thing, but then the review isn't about marketing
Rating:
Summary: Way too much for so little
Review: First off, I am not a Microsoft Hater. As far as I'm concerned, anyone is welcome to write an operating system. In fact, there is a free one out there. However, this product is an embarassment. Previous Plus packs were cool things with great extras, such as theme support. Hello? Theme support is built into XP. Including an MP3 ripper would have been nice, maybe even throw in the DVD decoder. These two things would have made it worth it, and would have caused a lot of people to buy it. Microsoft really dropped the ball on this thing. Don't reinforce this behavior by buying this paperweight. BTW, XP itself is fantastic.
Rating:
Summary: Do >>NOT<< buy this!!!
Review: Microsoft should be ashamed of putting this out at full price, it is really a (...) demo disk that you can buy more upgrades (more fish, more bowling alleys). The added themes and skins are not at all worth the price. Buying this only made me mad.
Rating: 
Summary: Microsoft Plus! for Windows XP
Review: Microsoft Plus! for XP brings out the best in XP. It adds enhanced speaker quality along with a Hyper Bowling game called HyperBowl! At a very low inexpensive price, anyone could afford it. Plus! adds new screen savers to bring the colors out of XP! This is a must buy and I must give!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy this if you have a laptop with 8 MB of Video RAM
Review: I love Windows XP. It's made my system work tremendously well; I was really excited when I saw that this product was out and I could get more games to play in class and more skins, etc. Unfortunately, most of the stuff offered in this package ain't worth very much to me with my laptop because there's not enough video memory to install this. Such, this is a note to be aware. There is a good conversion utility to turn MP3s into WMA which can save a lot of space. Some of the other stuff is fairly useful too (something that optimzes sound for speakers, etc.) but Microsoft is really being cruel for not giving you this stuff either online or with the system software. THink about it hard before buying this....
Rating:
Summary: An amazing version of Windows....
Review: I hated Windows before this version. It crashed too much, added icons where I didn't want them, lost my mail, lagged with Internet Explorer. It didn't let me run my Napster with my Netscape; it made me loose my email three or four times. Lots of its historical problems are gone with this version, though. This program runs really fast, is easy to use, and I'm addicted to the Media Player (I.m running an 850 Mhz Pentium-III with 256 MB of RAM). It makes my computer boot in like a third of the time that it used to take and I've had NO-- and I mean NO-- software conflicts in almost a month. Totally worth it's cost if your system can run it. I was switching from ME, though, so for people running 2000, it might be a different risk-benefit analysis....
Rating:
Summary: Worth the money!
Review: I love this product! I agree 39 bucks is a lot of money, but the screensavers and games rock! I've spent more on standalone games that haven't been nearly as much fun. My son loves Hyperbowl (it's just like the arcade version) and the Voice Command for Windows Media Player works better than any voice power feature I've ever seen. Being able to say "Media Player, Play artist Sarah McLachlan" rocks! Worth the money. REALLY SHOWS OFF XP!!
Rating:
Summary: Plus What???
Review: I bought Plus for XP, recently, then I installed it. I was expecting a Microsoft Plus that added great features like Plus 98. But, it was nothing like that. First, there was 4 measily little themes. And the fish screen saver, which if you want more fish, you'd have to pay for it. Well what was the $...for anyway? And the games! For heavens sake. Why put a stinkin lite edition into a $...collection of programs. And there are other programs that I might not fool with anyway. For those who are looking to buy this, please note that you at least need a 500 megahertz computer, 64MB of RAM, and a 3D video card with 16, I repeat 16MB of video memory. If Microsoft had added such things as an Antivirus to the program, more desktop themes, FULL EDITION Games, and less steep requirements, then I'd recommend this to everyone. So if your at the store, leave this on the shelf!!! PS - This program is a prime example of Bloatware.
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