Windows XP - The real Xperince (Microsoft Windows XP (Whistler))

Member Name: aldohead

Product:	Microsoft Windows XP (Whistler)
Date:	10/11/01 (182 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Stable, Nice new features

Disadvantages: To hardware-hungry, Too expensive

Windows XP

Okay, if you can?t be bothered to read my opinion, just click very useful and go buy a copy.
But if you are clever, listen to me and I?ll explain some more about my favourite OS, Windows XP.

Intro

Microsoft Windows XP is basically the latest operation system by Bill Gates and his friends at Microsoft. Big wow I hear you scream. Well the big difference is that it integrates the 9x and NT series of Windows into one. Well kind of, as there is home and professional. I have used both home and pro, I can comment on both :). In case you haven?t guessed, Home is for home users, and Pro is for Business/Power users. The main difference?s are that home has less features than pro. Pro has all the features of home, but home doesn?t have all the features of pro. Simple.
Some of the features that home lacks is dual monitor support and dual processor support (multi-threading I think it?s called in jargon language). Anyway I?ll review the features in more detail?

Why MS made it

Microsoft made XP, apart from to make huge amounts of money is to combine two product lines into one. Why would they want to do that? Well they can market them simultaneously, and don?t need to have two separate customer care things. Stuff like that basically.
XP is quite simply, the best windows ever. Read on my friends?

Good Points

Stable
Windows XP is unbelievably stable. I can?t make it crash. I used to be able to make the system completely lock out by scrolling really fast in Internet Explorer. Now I can?t. If you are used to having to constantly restart due to system lock-ups, I recommend you upgrade now.
Why is Windows XP so stable? Because it?s based on Windows 2000, which is the expensive business version and Windows 2000 has a completely different kernel (core software) to Windows 95, 98 and ME, even though they look the same and do nearly the same things.

Fast
Windows XP is much faster than
crappy old 9x. I have probably saved in a week about 10 hours of working time, thanks to not crashing. If you only have 128mb of ram, think about going up to 384mb, as it can swap around a bit if you don?t have 256mb+. Games also run faster due to DirectX 8.1a.

Nice features

If you are new to the world of computing, you?ll love some of the new toys that come with it. Internet checkers and backgammon are provided, which will get you hooked on online gaming in an instant. The new MSN Explorer is also good, if not biased towards MSN services. The new Movie Maker is great and if you have a few home movies, you?ll have them edited like a pro in an instant.

Windows Media Player 8 is version 7 done properly. Forget all the crap with it being memory hungry. It?s been streamlined and now contains a DVD player which is as good as, if not better, than the commercial players. CD-Ripping into windows media file format is handled well and will have you building a collection of music up in no time. It also contains CD-Burning software and a way to manage your files on portable music players. Sweet.

File Compression is at last handled, so you can throw away WinZip for uncompressing. You?ll still need it for compressing files, though.

The new Windows Task Manager is very nice, which shows how much of you memory, CPU and various other details are being used by your programs. This replaces the old cntrl-alt-delete thing.

The help and support centre is MUCH better, and actually helps, instead of just confusing you more. It pulls various hints and tips off the Microsoft website, which is nice. If that doesn?t help your problems, and you have a techie friend with XP, he can dial into your computer and fix your problem remotely, thanks to Remote Assistance, which gets rid of the need for PCAnywhere.

Are you sick of your kids messing up your desktop, deleting system files, etc? Well not anymore. The new login looks lovely, and
also stops people that you don?t want to messing up your system. Only one person can do that, the ?Admin? as XP calls it?

Bad

Not Free

It would be better if it was free. Or at least cheaper. At nearly £300 for the full pro edition, it?s a bit steep. The full home edition is only £100 cheaper. Which is too much in my opinion.

Poor driver support.

Poor might be a bit harsh, but it is a bit on the weak side. My modem and printer weren?t supported, so I had to go and download new ones. If you can?t find XP ones, just download Windows 2000 ones. They usually (99%) work. Make sure you run the system compatibility wizard from the CD to make sure nothing will break down that you desperately need. And don?t install just before you need to do that memo, as you might never get it done :(.

Conclusion

Windows XP is great. I recommend you buy it. Everything has been redone, and your PC can do loads of cool stuff that would next-to-impossible/expensive with Windows XP. Now to wait until Edition 2004 comes out?

Summary: