Rating: 
Summary: A great XP-erience
Review: After what I think, this is one of the best 'Windows' editions ever, it's both colorful and useful, and there is many new ways to make better shortcuts.
Rating:
Summary: A real beaut of an operating system
Review: At last MS have come up with the goods. A real gem of an operating system. Stable, easy to use both for the expert and non-expert. Buy it you will not be disappointed. Way to go MS.
Rating: 
Summary: only choice I had
Review: I'M NOT TOO THRILLED WITH THIS PROGRAM. IN FACT IT IS THE ONLY PRELOADED PROGRAM THAT IS FOR SALE ON ALL CPU'S THESE DAYS. I DON'T WANT A NETWORKING PROGRAM LIKE XP. WHAT HAPPENED TO 98. IF SOMEONE WOULD TRADE ME WINDOWS 98 THEY CAN HAVE THIS PROGRAM. I HAD NO CHOICE WHEN PURCHASING A CPU
Rating: 
Summary: Microsoft continues monopolistic practices.
Review: First off, WindowsXP is by far the most stable version of Windows yet. And this is coming from a computer programmer/power user that has run every type of application known to mankind on his home computer. But while stability is important, here are the gripes I have with the product:- The product activation. My hard drive crashed twice on my brand new computer (it was defective from day one) and I have had to re-activate XP three times now. I have never had to re-install an operating system due to a hard drive crash in my lifetime. Funny how it happens now when Microsoft tries to reduce software piracy. The fact that I can only reinstall it one more time before I've used up my activations is ridiculous. Does this company not have enough money already? Imagine having to activate EVERY piece of software you buy before using it. The computer industry would collapse and people would throw their computers out the window. - So much for efficient operating systems. Without a top of the line system, most users won't be able to run XP. But that is after all the point isn't it? Microsoft and Intel have a good pact going where they both help each other. Microsoft creates the most bloated and demanding operating system, and Intel creates a new Pentium chip (for $700) so you can run it. A continuous cycle of profits. Of course you can always stand pat and get left behind as applications stop being written for the older versions of Windows... - The endless advertising for Microsoft. Without a doubt, Microsoft is using XP to promote a whole host of other Microsoft products. Whether it's Outlook, Passport, Internet Explorer, or whatever the case may be, this is a truly unfair advantage to other companies. - The childish search feature. A perfectly good search engine has been crippled and now features a silly dog animation. Whatever happened to just being able to type in a file name with wildcards and find it? - The new start menu. Simply put, use the old one. - Explorer. I need to sift through TWO ADDITIONAL LEVELS of garbage to get to my C drive. What a pain in the behind. And the default view for EVERY folder is tile view instead of detail view. You need to switch them one by one to detail. - Scan Disk. It used to take about one minute, now it takes about one hour. You've gotta love that. With that said, it does have a refreshing look. It does start up MUCH faster than older versions of Windows, and without fail, consumers will be forced to buy it eventually whether they want it or not because there is no alternative. - Chris
Rating:
Summary: Windows XP Professional (Depends)
Review: This edition of Windows XP is primarily business oriented, but there are certain features that would be useful in the Home Edition of Windows XP. Example of this would be remote desktop, an amazing feature that allows you to actually control your computer from another computer running Windows XP Pro. Why I do not recommend it for most home users is the architecture of the operating system itself. Certain features such as Administrative tools (turned on by default in XP Pro) would not be recommended for a family PC, if you have a child and he or she enters the Administrative tools and alters any component of the services feature, it can totally ruin your PC. In terms of general functionality Windows XP is "awesome", features worthy of this word include multiple users, beautiful graphical user interface, and easier access to programs. The "start menu", in previous Windows it was like you had to climb a mountain before you reached the programs menu, now that's not ease of use! In Windows XP just click the "start menu" and you are right at the program menu, now that's ease of use! When it comes in comparison to previous versions of Windows such as 95, 98, NT, "ME" and even 2000, it's really worth the upgrade. Windows 95 to ME crashed tremendously NT was horrible on laptops and its basically kind of outdated now, 2000 does not support enough drivers. But overall for the person who travels a lot and needs to either retrieve information from their home or business computer, Windows XP Pro is very good. For performance, I recommend a 500 MHz processor, 128 MB's of memory, anything lower than that you won't be installing much software on that machine. Remember Windows XP requires a lot of resources, in terms of processor speed and memory. If you want to take advantage of some of the features in XP, I suggest that you have a CD burner, you get more out of XP. My pictures has been totally redesigned for integration with online services, you take pictures and upload them to websites for editing e.g. "KODAK". It's not a terrible operating system like I have read in most reviews, but the architecture of the operating system is more business oriented. For users of previous versions of Windows I recommend you buy the Upgrade instead of the full version of Windows XP rather than spend hard earned money buying the full version, because your getting the same thing. If you used 98, ME and want reliability, stability, and ease of use, go for the Home Edition. Persons using NT and 2000 I suggest they upgrade to XP Pro. I like Windows XP Pro a lot; it's better than the Home Edition in minor features. I'm going to buy it soon but for now I'm going to stick with Windows XP Home. It all depends on the user and the environment, as simple as that.
Rating:
Summary: Don't believe the negative hype.
Review: Windows XP is a masterpiece. Microsoft finally got it right. People who don't like this operating system will never like anything made by Microsoft. Product activation is a non-issue. It is completely anonymous. Don't confuse activation with registration. Registration is not required. I have yet to install a software program that doesn't work flawlessly or a hardware device that is not automatically recognized. Almost all recent pieces of hardware, and most older ones, will have the drivers built in. If your machine is less than a Pentium II don't bother upgrading. Go buy a new machine with XP installed.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: This is the most stable version of Windows. It is rock solid. If you (like a lot of people I know) are still using SE or ME, you need to know that there is a whole new world out here. Even if you run 2000, you'll be glad you switched to XP Pro.
Rating:
Summary: I think they finally got it
Review: After using NT for some time in a production environment I was happy to see that its technology finally made it to Microsoft's desktop OS (it's about time!). Since I hadn't purchased an OS in a long time I was reluctant to part with $100 for a set of features I felt should have been there in the first place. But, I was having terrible stability problems with Windows ME so I decided to go for it, and I am very happy with my decision. Installation:
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The box sat on my desk for a few days while I contemplated if I really wanted to go through with the upgrade. I figured something would fail and I would be left with a crippled system. Finally I decided to go for it. I booted the upgrade CD and it could never find a copy of Windows on my system (Windows ME was installed). This seemed like a bad sign, but I pressed on. I ended up running the update from within Windows and everything worked fine. The update wizard was clear about which programs and hardware were not compatible. After that the installation was a breeze - completely hands off. Once it was done the machine rebooted and I was running XP. I was very impressed with the ease of the upgrade process. I had no problems with applications running under XP. Well, naturally the applications that weren't compatible didn't magically work J. Anyway, even games worked just fine. Usability/New Features:
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There really isn't too much here, but the few changes do make a difference. First, and most obvious, is the new interface. It operates much like the old one with some cosmetic enhancements and usability enhancements to areas like the control panel. New users will find the system friendlier. Overall, more functionality is integrated into XP. For example, browsing through folders offers many new features. If you are looking at a folder full of pictures you practically have the functionality of a full picture-viewing program at your disposal. It reminded me of features seen in the KDE project (a *nix desktop environment) to provide robust functionality in the file manager. Finally, coming from a Unix background, I love the ability to theme the desktop. If you look around the net you'll find XP themes based on your favorite *nix window manager themes. On top of that, the PowerToys package (available for download from Microsoft) allows for a traditional Unix-like "focus follows mouse" policy. Finally! J Recommendations: ----------------
If you are using Windows 95, 98 or ME I highly recommend making the investment in XP. It is worth every penny just for the stability alone. Before updating your system, grab the latest XP drivers for all of your hardware. This makes it much easier to get your system running optimally once the update has taken place. Don't bother converting your filesystem to NTFS unless you reformat your drive. From what I've read on Usenet, it seems that when you convert to NTFS, the filesystem isn't optimally configured and actually results in rather degraded performance. Most people seem to recommend reformatting your drive if you are going to convert to NTFS. If you are thinking about doing this, make sure to read through some bulletin boards so you understand what you are getting in to and the tradeoffs involved. Oh, why 4 stars? First, the copy protection scheme is an annoyance. I can only imagine the problems that will arise as my system changes or if I get a new system. Second, the security issues are a real concern.
Rating:
Summary: XP has me being a MS Optimist again
Review: I am giving four stars due to not having a warm fuzzy feeling about internet security with XP. Still looking this part of XP over. First the surrounding variables, I am running a self built system, Gigabyte motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP processor, onboard sound blaster audio (that means no pci sound card), 3DFX VooDoo3 16M graphics card out of a two year old Compaq, 3COM network card out of a 4 year old IBM, Logitech Wingman Digital Extreme Joystick, HP multimedia keyboard that came with a HP Pavilion last year, and a Microsoft Optical Mouse. 256m Ram. With all of the hardware problems people are having with XP, I guess I was asking for punishment. Now, first of all, I did lots of homework before getting XP and loading it. I read some other users problems, and I searched for XP drivers for all of my hardware, I had all drivers on a disk ready to load before I ever bought XP. I downloaded and performed the MS Hardware check, and read all FAQs. After about two weeks I decided to go out and buy it. So I got home and started the setup process. I let windows format my hard drive (that means completely erase everything on it) and setup the NTFS partition. Then begin the install process, which believe it or not went faster then I would have liked. I am used to confirmation screens, constant reboots, and long file copy process. In the time it took me to cook a couple of hamburgers, Windows XP loaded, when I got back to the computer (hamburgers in hand) it was loaded and up. So now I'm ready to load drivers, and see if windows will work with my hardware...wait, what's this...I don't need to load anything into windows because...it already did by itself. With out a single external driver (except for HP software to configure the internet buttons on my keyboard), windows loaded the most updated and proper driver for every piece of my thrown together equipment, as a matter of fact the only problem I had was a bios setting which enabled USB support for keyboard/mouse/fdd and was causing my PS/2 connected keyboard to not load, but the Microsoft Knowledge base pointed that one out pretty quick, and I disabled the setting in my BIOS (*note* I am still using a USB mouse in windows, so this didn't limit the abilities of my computer) So how is it, well coming from a Windows 98se user, it is awesome, remarkable stability, crisp graphics, awesome built in sound capabilities, XP turned my Logitech speakers w/ subwoofer into something that sounded way more expensive then they where. I haven't tried 3D games like Nascar 4 or Rainbow Six on it yet, but I don't have any fear, Microsoft says XP supports them and it has run everything else that I have thrown at it way better then Win 98. I spent a day setting up my Home network between my two computers on Win 98se, XP did it practically by itself in less then 5 minutes. The fact that it not only supported, but also updated my VooDoo card is impressive. Do your homework; determine if your system hardware is compatible. Get the XP drivers for your hardware, (just in case your using something that windows needs help loading) Do a clean install. That means back up your files to disk and format the hard drive. Don't upgrade, Windows Upgrades are for unaltered versions of windows, trust me, at some point during your computing, a program has changed the original Windows Files, and this causes the problems most people have when upgrading to XP. Of course they blame it on XP and down the OS, when it's their fault to begin with. Crap in, crap out.. I always say. If you have bought a ready made PC from IBM, HP, Compaq, etc... Either get your upgrade from the manufacture (not a preferred option) or by the full version of XP. I have a Compaq Presario that I gutted and upgraded the hardware on, and I also installed a retail version of Win 98se getting rid of all that Compaq mess (useless when you get more familiar with your PC) Your restore disk that came with your computer contains zipped cabs that are a image of your hard drive as it shipped from the factory, it does not contain a verifiable version of Windows, so the XP upgrade won't see it as a qualified version for upgrade. Bet they didn't tell you that when you bought the computer. Bottom line, XP is indeed all it is supposed to be, it is better, but pity the fool who doesn't do their homework.
Rating: 
Summary: Installation Woes (Wind-woes)
Review: For those that own the product and got it to install congratulations. Myself I haven't been as lucky. The installation process will not go beyond the first reboot without giving an invalid page fault error. By the way this is a 1.4GHz Athlon, 1 gig of RAM, 80 gig hard drive & GEForce 32 Meg (DDR) AGP Video sytem with a 17" Flat Panel display, not an old relic! There should be a zero star rating for something that flat out doesn't run.
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