Rating: 
Summary: This product saved me $1500
Review: ...I am generally reluctant to praise anything from Redmond, but I have to admit that this is a good product, and saved me from buying another new computer.I bought a new Gateway 1 ghz machine about 2 years ago, running ME (the worst WIndows ever). It locked up about 3 times a day, and it locked up so hard the only way to reboot was to unplug the machine. It had lots of problems recognizing USB devices. Finally, I just gave up on it and bought a Mac Cube, and figured I would buy a new PC when the price of 2 ghz machines got down... However, I had pre-ordered XP on Amazon and forgot I had done so. One day XP shows up and I figure, what the heck, I might as well dig out the old PC and try it. Installation was not without some problems (see below) but I felt like I had a whole new PC. It has not crashed once since I installed XP last August - not once. It is faster, easier to use, and rock solid. And with the DSL stuff built in, I no longer have to use MacPoet for PPPoE, and I swear even DSL is faster now. Best [money] I ever spent on a PC, and I have been a PC user since 1983. A word of caution: before you upgrade, go out on the internet and get all the XP drivers from the manufacturers of you ancillary equipment, particuarly your modem. My modem, my ethernet card, and my Soundblaster did not work after I installed XP, and I no longer had a way to get to the internet to get the drivers or register XP. I had to get the XP drivers using my Cube and DSL, then write them to a CD, then load them on the PC. A little foresight on my part would have saved me a lot of work and diagnostics. Once the three drivers were installed, everything was cool. And I was blown away at how simple getting DSL set up was under XP. It was kind of a PITA under ME. Now I use my Gateway more than my Mac because it is a lot faster with only 20% of the memory my Mac has (Cube still on 9.2 because OS X crashes hard). I would give XP 10 stars if I could.
Rating: 
Summary: Some of that "NT" Stability
Review: I'm probably one of those less popular reviewers because I am not a "Microsoft-hater". XP Pro sparkled at detecting all of the hardware associated with an HP Pavilion. Detection of a lot of hardware on "bundle" leaders like Compaq and Hewlett-Packard often tripped up prior Windows versions. About the only piece of hardware XP failed to detect was a Seiko Smart Label Printer Pro, which installed just fine with it's own software. Smart Label Printer Pro users beware! You must use advanced options and turn off those FIFO buffers on the COM port you are using the Smart Label Printer Pro on or it will cause a print fault. I believe this is an anomaly with the SLP, and not Windows. Another thing that impressed me about Windows XP Professional is that my klunky dialup modem connects at a consistently faster rate than it did under Windows ME. Some of this could be ambitious connection reporting, but my online sessions using a dialup seem more stable and faster and I am not disconnected as often. I seldom suffer the system crashes I experienced with previous versions from what I'll call the "95 Family" which means from Windows 95 through ME. XP seems to offer some of that "NT" stability for standalone computers. Some people don't like the new "teletubbie" rounded look. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet, but it's a pretty simple task to revert to the Windows classic view. Adding programs to the start menu isn't quite as easy in XP, but if you switch to classic view, it works as easily as prior versions. Although I haven't presented some of the negative aspects extant since Windows 3.11, my opinion is that Windows XP is a pretty neat, stable product and I'm enjoying using it!
Rating: 
Summary: To the guy with the HP printer
Review: I know your pain man, when I had XP on my system I tried using my HP digital camera. It didn't work. I tried it on all other computers; it even workerd with Win95! Not XP though, I contacted HP, they said they support the OS; it just didn't work. After about 30 minutes on the phone with HP (their tech support [STINKS]!) We determined that I have to have the USB cable in the computer when I reboot but the camera couldn't be connected to the other end. Then after the reboot I had to leave the camera in the view picture mode as I plugged it in. That was the ONLY way it would work. I bought an internal flach card reader soon after. Anyways I quickly formated my HD (my gamepad didn't work still, I was hoping it would be fixed in XP since it didn't work in Win2k. So I put back Windows 2000 and am perfectly happy. And my copmputers can see each other on the network again! Yay!
The advise I have to offer is this. If you are running Windows 9.x and have a 700mhz cpu and 256 RAM upgrade to XP (BUT UPGRADE TO PROFESSIONAL EDITION OR YOU WILL REGRET IT). If you are running Windows 2000 you will just lose stability and won't gain added support. If you are willing to sacrafice system stability for "hello kitty fonts" be my guest but know what you sre doing. If you are running a sub 500mhz machine or don't have AT LEAST 256 RAM check out Windows 2000, its very nice and you won't get lag when playing solitare.
Rating:
Summary: A good product for the professional translator
Review: I am a professional translator and i have been using "word", the word processor part of office for many years. during the trial of office xp, i lost a part of a translation i was working on because i forgot to save it when i opened a second version of this text. i started doing intuitive things in the faraway hope of finding the "lost manuscript". after a few minutes, "word" found the lost text and connected it automatically with the new version i was working with. if you are a translator yourself you know what it means to one.
Rating: 
Summary: Some good things and some bad
Review: I get basically access to every major OS through my school. I first upgraded to XP Professional from Windows 98 and other than the silly general interface which I quickly changed, was very happy with it. My first irritation came from the way it listed internet explorer on the task bar, open up more than three IE windows and it cascades them into one, if there was a way to change that setting I could not find it. That was really only a minor irritation. The only problem I had with my applications was that I could not find a driver for my DVD decoder on my graphics card. So I lost the ability of DVD playback on my PC, no big deal as I rarely used that anyway of late. Then the big problem came one day. All of my desktop icons, became scrambled one day. I was able to switch about half of them back to the correct icon, but the other half were stuck. Restarting had no effect on getting the correct desktop icons. Not soon after the desktop icon problem I started getting considerable lag on the computer, which is a AMD 1gig machine with 384 Mb of RAM. The only other problem was created with the horrible ISP I am forced to work with. I can connect to the internet fine on my main machine and have it networked with another machine also running XP on a clean install. The two computers comunicate well in all facets except for the internet. Clicking on internet explorer on the second machine will cause the ISP on the first to dial up, and it will connect yet it shows disconnected on both machines interface. Maybe a minor inconvience except that it has to many set up wizards for the network that don't give me the control to make the nessary adjustments that I am familiar with on earlier versions like NT or 9x. I'm sure it could be resolved but I am just too unfamiliar with XP to know how to get around those setup wizards. The only other major problem I encountered is that I have a gaming system and most of my games are very happy with the Fat32 file system, on the clean version of XP, you have to go to extensive searches looking for updated drivers. In the end I switched back to Windows 98, I don't mind the occaisional restart. I may still run XP on a dual boot system but that is only because I did not have to pay for it since I got it through my school.
Rating:
Summary: A big improvement, but beware of the challenges
Review: I upgraded to get compatibility with a firewire CD-RW drive. The OS is much more stable and has many enhanced features over WIN 98. Here are some of the challenges that I encountered. DVD
Only recognized my Sony DVD drive as a CD-ROM. I replaced the 5X drive with a new 16X drive that works find. However, the video playback is choppy even with an ATI Rage Pro AGP card. Speed
With 96MB RAM, the performance was noticably slower than WIN 98. I upgraded to 192MB and the performance is now equal to WIN 98. Drivers
I had to download and install new drivers for most of my peripheral devices. While this was a hassle, I must admit that the new drivers help the devices perform better than under WIN 98. The scanner provides better OCR support, the printer is faster, etc. Programs
Most programs worked okay, but I had to uninstall some older programs that locked up the system. Summary
Prepare to spend several days working out these types of issues and plan to spend another $50-$200 on hardware upgrades.
Rating:
Summary: XP- A refreshing change
Review: I recently aquired a laptop as a birthday present with XP pre-installed, and the first time I turned my laptop on, I was very impressed with how easy it was to get setup. The system lets you name your computer, add multiple users with separate accounts, and clean up your desktop. There's even a feature called the desktop cleaning wizard that lets you place unused shortcuts into a folder to minimize your clutter.
I immediately installed the driver to run my internet, which XP had no trouble installing, and I got online in no time. The start menu and toolbars have had a major facelift, which looked very good. The start menu is completely customizable, for example, you can select how many shortcuts you want on it. You can readily access all your personal files with shortcuts to My Pictures, My Music, and My Documents. The windows have been rounded out and given a cool 3-D effect with textures and even animations. And if you aren't up to that, you can still change your setup to the classic Windows setup. The toolbar is also less cluttered, and you can even customize it to "hide inactive icons" when you are not using them, which is pleasing to my eyes.
Having been a Windows user since 3.1, I can say that this OS is definitely more stable than the others. This feature alone is worth buying the software. I have another PC at home which runs on 98, and comparing the two, my XP machine crashes MUCH less, if it does at all. With my 1.12 Ghz laptop already considered "average" speed nowadays, it still runs very smooth and very fast. This is with 256 RAM on a Celeron processor.
I have had absolutely no problems installing hardware to my computer either. I even had an old game of Blizzard's Starcraft that I could still run. XP also has a feature which detects new hardware being installed, which I thought was very useful and time-saving. When I connected my printer, XP automatically detected it and asked me if I wanted to set it up. I didn't even need the CD printer driver because I was able to find updated versions of printer drivers on XP, which saved me the trouble of going to the internet and finding it. You can also customize XP to notify you of crucial updates when connected to the internet, which you can download to keep your OS running as smooth as possible.
There are some pits. During the first couple weeks of use, I was getting those semi-annoying pop-up messages that kept coming back even after you tell them not to show up anymore, but they eventually disappeared. There were also a few instances where I got error messages on random operations it somehow didn't like. Although these occurences were very few, I still thought they are worth mentioning.
All in all, XP is a great OS for your computer. Just make sure that your computer has the hardware to support it, as it really puts your computer to work. Be advised that not all programs will work, since the programming is a little different from older Windows versions. When connecting other hardware, make sure that it is XP compatible, and if you're not sure, download the latest driver and see if it works. It might even have a driver for your device already in it, you just have to look. Getting it to work successfully is all really trial and error... And a lot of patience. For experienced Windows users like myself, XP is pretty much the same as the other versions with a lot of pluses. You will find what you are looking for if you know your way around. Beginners will also find this OS easy to work with as well, with its tutorial and online help center. I would recommend this to software to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Enough to gag a maggot
Review: Round cushiony icons. Fluffy, pillowy menus and dialog boxes. Soft puppy-dog colors. Cutsie bunny rabbit style windows. "Hello Kitty" fonts. If ever a user interface was designed by a valley girl who had far to much to drink, this is it. With enough work, you can force the interface back to looking like a more sensible, usable, Windows 2000 interface, but then why not just buy Windows 2000? There is no easy way to get "under the covers", it's harder than a Mac OS to do any device customization. This OS simply has NO way to easily connect to a home network, with the possible exception of a home network running XP exclusively. It is clearly made for the single computer user who not only knows nothing about what's under the interface but doesn't want to know. Microsoft has lost their mission of making the machine easier for the user to access. With this version they've made the interface a prison wall to keep you out (maybe in?) rather than a dashboard to provide information and access. The "ET call the mothership for authorization" is a total loser too. The home user who gets their custom hardware-based code and changes their graphics adapter without calling Mama Microsoft first (and you must call and endure the required 800 number time on hold - the web site doesn't handle "I need a new code because I'm about to change my hardware") will find themselves with a vegged out computer, requiring that they have to put the original hardware back in or reinstall from scratch. What happens if the original hardware goes bad and an exact replacement is no longer available? You DID write that Microsoft 800 number down where you can find it, didn't you? I received this OS already installed on a computer I purchased online. I gave it my best shot for at least four hours, and did another 10 hours of research about it online. I then formatted my fixed disk and installed Windows 2000. I have worked with, both professionally and as a home user, with Windows286, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows 2000. Each has had it's good and bad points, but each was always an improvement over the previous OS. Not so here. This is a step backwards from 2000. The distribution CD is really pretty with that "Windows" hologram on the face of it. I may make it into a clock.
Rating:
Summary: eXPect some hassles along the way, folks
Review: I have used PCs since 1994. In that space of time, i've used Windows 3.11, 9x, and Me. XP has to be the most demanding OS i've seen. First, the reqirements are pretty steep. On my previous PC, I had to upgrade the RAM to even run the OS and after I chose the upgrade option (bad mistake) the OS took up almost my entire HDD. I had to revert to Win98 so I could burn CDs (which failed.) The point of my sob story is to do a clean install and uninstall any apps that will block using the new OS. Recently I got a new PC with XP preinstalled. Most of the problems that dogged my old PC are gone. Stabilty is better than ever. As we dig in the OS itself, Windows Media Player is preinstalled as is MSN Messenger (renamed Windows Messenger). There are no new features in IE6. If you want a real browser for XP, grab Netscape 6.2.2 off the net. The new Luna interface, along with the many wizards make me feel like a dummy. The final point is that XP is a good OS, but wait until you get it on a new PC.
Rating:
Summary: The beginning of the end of unstable OS's
Review: This operating system has alot of potential however i do not reccomend using it unless u have a processor faster then 1 GHz and 256MB of ram if your's is slower use Me or Win 2k Pro
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