Rating: 
Summary: Unnecessary With Horrible Twists
Review: XP was supposed to be the time when Microsoft's home systems ("9x") and business systems (NT) came together. Well, they do, sort of.It's Windows 2000 (i.e., Windows NT 5), with even more work done to accommodate the home games and educational programs most often used on Windows 95/98/Me. You can install games made for Windows 95 or 98, with settings to automatically change configurations for each program (e.g. to 640x480 256-color display). This is a really nice concept, and it sometimes works. (Works for most old kid-programs tested, but not for all.) There's also a lot of gratuitous graphics change in the "look & feel", which is certainly different, but unnecessary, non-functional, and sometimes more coarse than sophisticated. It's Rad, for young teens. And, of course, you get an update in the linkage to the latest Microsoft technologies, allowing them to deliver content over the web, and run the latest new programs. (You can also keep up-to-date update other operating systems, like Windows 2000, without upgrading to Windows XP.) The worst thing for me is that, at least originally, it was advertised without any mention that the Home edition won't work on a home network that includes a Domain. It took a lot of researching to discover this simple fact. XP Home and Pro are the same software, but Microsoft disabled the networking function in the Home version. There's no upgrade to Pro from Home, if you bought the wrong version. So I'm stuck. If you have Windows 3.1 or 95, it's time for a new operating system (and perhaps a new computer) (NOTE: XP Upgrade won't work for you -- you need the full version!!). If you have Windows 2000, don't sweat the update - you can do without, unless you don't care about the money. (98/Me/NT4 - you're borderline .. what works now, will keep working, but your future prospects are limited..)
Rating:
Summary: Avoid if you want to do web development
Review: WinXP home doesn't come with, and won't run, PWS or IIS. Hence no pretty little ASP pages. Annoying as it usually comes prepackaged with PCs in a big shiny 'multimedia' displays. Then you get it home and find it doesn't do jack. :-(
Rating: 
Summary: What more could you ask for?
Review: WindowsXP was a very big leap for me. I started off as Anti-XP, because it looked so dumb. I had been running Windows2000 Pro for about 3 years, and one day, it began to annoy me. I was like, what the hell, lets try WindowsXP. I installed WindowsXP Pro, and right off the bat it knew all my devices. Considering that I have 5 USB, just recently 6, 6 PCI Cards, and a ATI Radeon 8500... I was impressed. The default VGA Drivers are "ghetto", but it doesn't make you sit in the 640x640x256 Color Enviornment like it's predecessors. Overall preformance was pretty good. Since WindowsXP is based on the Windows 2000 Kernel, it didn't have many negative things. I really enjoy the "Switch User" function. I can "Logout" but not close all my apps, and login as someone else. This is VERY handy, trust me. For the "Display": you can keep the Kindergarten interface if you so choose. You can switch XP to classic mode, where it looks like Windows9x/Windows2000. Same goes for the Start bar. My 2nd favorite thing is the built-in CD Burner software from Roxio. You just insert a blank CD-R, and drag files onto the actual Drive. Click "Write these files to a CD", and moments later you have your CD. Overall I am very impressed, XP is very accomidating to you knowledge level. Myself being an advanced user, I didn't feel so violated....
Rating:
Summary: ... think before buy
Review: ...Windows XP is brand new. Which means like all new OS it is designed for new computers. Not something that is five years old. Yes XP demands a lot. I had the minimum RAM for XP but when I upgraded the RAM it works betters. ...Pretty much anybody that is "into" computers knows Microsoft's problems/praises and should expect that. ....I have had problems with XP just like I would have with any problem on any OS. Software is not perfect. If it was then there would be only one Operating System and only one version of a program. Windows XP has its flaws like any OS like Linux, MacOS, or any of the other out there. ...XP does demand a lot from your resources, if you get a brand new computer have at least 256 RAM and a decent sized hard drive then get XP, its great. If you have an older system stick with Win98(SE if available). Windows 98 was great for me. But just like 3.1 and 95, 98 will eventually be outdated. But just like 98 XP may be outdate in a few years. That is the price you pay with software. The minute you buy any software (utility or game) or hardware, its outdated. ...
Rating:
Summary: Its a Really Great Product so far.
Review: So far I've had it a couple days and I'm loving it. Its a lot smoother running than windows 98.. you need to get a couple of critical updates from Microsoft.com to help performance but there free and dont take TOO long to download... Haven't found any problems with updating... my computer is 3years old and it runs GREAT!
Rating:
Summary: Don't Waist Your Time
Review: Don't do it. If you are running 98,2k or even ME keep them on your pc. XP has been touted as the 'new wonder from MS'. Not so. If you know nothing about computers you won't even know what you are missing. But for those of you who do know your pc stay away. I would think that in a few years they might actually have it fully debugged, might...
I was in the marked for a new lap top and ended up buying a Mac. There were many factors but the main factor was the operating system. After spending much time working in XP I just couldn't stand it any more. I use win2k at work and it's great, stable, fast, a good extension to 98, one of the best OS out there. When I heard Mac released a unix based OS, I jumped for joy and bought the Mac. You can't beat the stability, ability and control. It's time for the MS marketing department to lay off of trying to control the entire pc world and let the user have a choice in what the user wants to run on their pc and not what will make MS money.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Flashy but it Works
Review: I installed this over Windows ME because I bought Visual Basic.NET and it was required to make it run.
It installed fine, but be prepared for it to take several hours to install. It does not however require you to interact much. The install is very automatic.
You can change the look and feel back to Windows 98, like I did. This took a bit of hunting to find all the parts but it does work.
I have seen other comments about software and hardware problems, so let me address them: I would tend to agree that if you have a machine that is four or five years old you would be better off buying a new one than installing this. The biggest warning: If all your software and hardware is very old, this will not work.
You must have drivers and software that are compatible. Some NT/2000 stuff will work. If you have OEM installed software, it probably will not work. I had to replace my virus software and CD-Burner software. (I chose Norton antivirus and Burn and Go by IOMEGA, priced right and installed fine.)
On the plus side the install has one great feature. You can run a test first to see what will be incompatible with the new OS, and get what you need.(You should have PLENTY of time to run to the store while it installs!!) I suggest uninstalling incompatible items before you do the install, as the uninstall may not work later. I had this happen with McAffee antivirus.
Also it insisted that all my USB peripherals be conected and turned on for the install.
I also installed Service Pack 1 from the internet. This took about 5 hours to download and another hour plus to install, so be forewarned. Be prepared to spend MANY hours fine tuning your system.
Otherwise works OK. It did hang once when I had a CD miss-aligned in the drive. Otherwise no real problems.
The only thing I do not like is having to log-in at power-up. I am the only user.
Rating:
Summary: A catastrophe with pretty music
Review: Which is to say, XP is the Titanic. It sinks and it stinks, and all the bells & whistles can't cover it over. I bought the upgrade Home edition and overlaid it on a machine running Millennium--a Dell Celeron. Ostensibly it reformatted my machine to NTFS from FAT32--however it preserved my entire collection of useless Millennium files. The first thing I found I had to do was go out and spend [price] on a new Roxio CD burner/copier because nobody bothered to mention that the version that came with Millennium would not work with XP--and so the industry panders to Microsoft and lets them get away with this highway robbery. Since installation in January I've had to reinstall the system on top of itself twice. It has developed a tendency to crash on any software it dislikes: not freeze and shut down one application, but just plain halt the machine and reboot. No explanation, no error message, just crash and restart. Its only positive is the system restore feature. That is a big positive but it's not enough to offset the liabilities. I would like to go over to 2000. Better, I'd like to go over to Linux if I knew there was a solid Windows emulator--I've heard WINE is drek and I've got a small fortune tied up in Windows-based software, some of which doesn't work anyway because it won't run under XP.
Rating: 
Summary: wait until the next update
Review: I just switched to XP Professional at work and have been rather disappointed. There appear to be numerous bugs. Several of my programs don't run correctly -- even in the highly-touted compatibility mode. The weird structure makes accessing the desktop confusing and further buries some functions (sometimes you still need DOS, something they like to ignore). The security enhancements have been really annoying -- plus they can't be that secure due to the numerous security upgrades they keep issuing. Fortunately, I didn't have to pay for my upgrade, but I've be upset if I had.
Rating:
Summary: Eats up ram and crashes all the time
Review: I just bought a Dell Inspiron 8200 pre-installed with Windows XP home edition and it [isn't very good]! the system keeps crashing and the problems are endless. I have another Dell system with Win 2K and boy is it A LOT better!... I am actually thinking about uninstalling the XP and installing Win 2K instead!! Also the XP is very demanding on RAM. I have 128MB of RAM and my system keeps running out of RAM and Virtual memory. Despite the fact that I only use IE and Word most of the time. The Win2K PC is not even half the specs of my new laptop but still works faster and smoother!
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