***New Important Information added 1/4/01 scroll to bottom***

If you were wondering what it stood for, that's it. XP is for eXPerience. This is the next generation of Windows that is supposed to surpass all other operating systems.

Overview
Microsoft claimed they were going to release an operating system in 2000 that would combine the best of both older operating systems: Windows NT and Windows 98. What happened? They couldn't do it. So what did they do, they came out with Windows 2000 and Windows Me. Since they didn't want to pass up some potential moneymaking, they just added a view more features and fixed a couple of more bugs in NT and 98. Hence 2 operating systems in the year 2000. 2000=upgraded NT, and ME=some what upgraded 98. Now they produced what they call the combination of the two Operating Systems into one in Windows XP.


Features
The Good
Nice Look: MS has a lot of talented people on their staff and the desktop look and feel is very soft and comfortable. Things fade in and fade out; the start button is rounded and colorful. Gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling when use it.

Switch User: Finally Windows came out with a multi-user operating system. This feature will allow 2 people to be on the computer without having to log off. Example: If you have a teenager playing a game on your computer and you need to print a report that is associated with your user name, you don't have to log out your kid. Use this feature to switch to your user settings without disrupting your kids game. You get to your desktop, print your reports and switch back to your kids user name and he is playing his game again.

Thumb Nail scroll: This is a neat little feature I wanted to share with you. I downloaded some images from my digital camera to the "My Pictures" folder. I went into the folder and the folder shows thumbnails of all your pics and an expanded picture in upper portion of the window. It has a left and right arrow button just below the picture so you can cycle through an expanded view of your pictures.

Remote Desktop Management: This is a security person's nightmare. Only the Professional version of XP has this Remote Desktop Management feature included. This allows you (if you r computer is connected to the internet) connect to your computer from anywhere. Not only will it allow you to connect to it, but it also it allows you to have full control as if you were sitting behind your computer. If you are familiar with the software PCAnywhere, it is basically the same thing but not as secure as PCAnywhere. I saw a live demonstration of this and it was pretty impressive. Microsoft XP Launch conference had a demo of an employee showing his boss how to do some neat tricks in PowerPoint. Through MSN Messenger, they did a videoconference so they could see and chat with each other. The boss granted the employee full control of his desktop while the employee clicked around on his boss' computer from down the hall. I was impressed.

The Bad

System Requirements:
Like all MS Operating Systems, this one is both a hard drive hog and a RAM hog.
300 MHz System
1.5 Gigabytes of drive space (It just keeps growing and growing)
128 mb of RAM

Again, this is just the minimum requirement. If you only have 2gb hard drive, you can install the OS and really nothing else. And when Microsoft says 128mb RAM is a minimum requirement it means you 256mb.

Error Reporting: This feature is something you want to turn off. What this feature does is take a snap shot of everything you are currently running (from RAM) and sends it to Microsoft so they can determine what caused your system to crash. So what does this mean to the non-tech savvy? That means if you are looking at your bank statements and your computer crashes, it will send a copy of your bank statements to Microsoft to look at. So you want to disable this feature for sure.

MSN Messenger: Yeah I know I have this in the Good and the Bad because it is both. Great if you want it, not so great if you don't. If you have a Microsoft Passport ID, you can use it here. If you don't want to sign up for another account, this little rascal will bug you and ask you periodically if you want to sign up. I even tried to disable the MSN Messenger from starting up. It worked until I rebooted and it put itself back into startup.

Activation: Well, MS has added this so-called security feature. This is suppose to minimize the amount of piracy of their XP operating system by having you contact them to use their product. You call or connect via the web to activate your product. You are then given a basic serial number that you enter to use the operating system. One draw back that I have read in numerous articles is that if you add or change too many components on your computer (Adding or changing hard drives, sound cards, modems, etc) that the operating system will not believe it is on the same system and you may have to reactivate your OS. I have not experienced or know of any first hand knowledge of this happening. If you do, please post a comment. One more thing concerning the activation. MS put activation to minimize piracy, but 3 weeks before the release, software pirates have managed to remove the activation portion for the operating system and there are numerous copies already in circulation that have the activation removed from the OS.

XP Drivers: Not everyone has XP drivers for all of their products yet. But there maybe some hope for you. Here is a personal experience I had with drivers. I have a ImageMate sandisk drive. This allows me to take the memory card from my digital camera and put it into this drive and BOOM! They are accessible on my computer. I went to Sandisk's website to download the drivers and they said they do not support XP drivers for my product. They did point to a third party for potential driver search success. Didn't work. So I had a thought. XP is very similar to 2000. So I downloaded the 2000 drivers and gave it a shot. The OS warned me that this driver had not been tested. I figured I do it anyway and it worked. So give that a shot.

Software Compatibility:
A big issue with XP right now. If you have a lot of older utilities and such, you maybe out of luck. XP claims to have some kind of software compatibility wizard that will allow your computer to emulate older versions of windows and even DOS. I haven't tried that yet. But another personal experience. I have an SBLive card with remote I tried to get working in XP, and the card works great. However, I have not gotten my remote to function in XP yet. I believe I will find a way.

The Price: $199 for the Professional version of the OS is a little too steep (for an upgrade). But that is why see Microsoft initials viewed as M$. They are very well known brand and they want you to PAY for it. I was fortunate that I have used XP Pro at work and didn't have to dish out the money out of my own pocket.

Conclusion
If you have money to burn, it is a fun toy. I haven't explored all of the features, but I did go through the majority and it is quicker than windows 98. My install went very smooth with no problems. I have heard the other side where some people have all kinds of problems. I would recommend getting the Professional version over the home edition. You get more features, but are they it worth the extra $100 over the home edition? Not out of my pocket. If you buy a computer with XP, try and get the Professional. It will be cheaper to upgrade before the final sale than after.

***New Information Added 01/04/02 ***
Just like every Windows operating system in the past, there is another vulnerability found in all of the Windows operating systems. With Windows, there is a feature called, "Universal Plug and Play" that can be turned on and it is automatically turned on in Windows XP.

Well, someone found out that when you turn on UPnP, you expose your network to hackers who could get into your network and cause damage by such things as denial-of-service attacks or distributed DoS attacks. So you need to patch your XP system or your windows machines if you have it turned on.

Here is the link for the patch:
http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/Release.asp?ReleaseID=34951

Recommended: Yes