I am going to start right in on the Cons for this one.

I got XP professional mainly for its networking features. I had my two computer networked fine, but I was having trouble with my Maxtor external 1394 hard drive. After installing XP on both computers (yes, it can be done with 1 program disc) I found that I actually had trouble networking my computers. It was easier networking my windows 2000 to my windows Me machine that 2 XP systems! I let XP do all of its own configuration and it screwed it up. I finally got it reconfigured after some tweaking, but it still is not 100%. My internet connection gets dropped after about 12 hours, and whenever my primary computer reconnects to the internet, the LAN goes down and I have to reboot to fix it.

Also, the myth that you won't have to reboot as much with XP is a farce. You have to reboot 2 more times than normal just setting up the OS. You still have to reboot after making changes to any system folders or networking settings.

They XP developers put a whole lot of time into making XP look a lot prettier and more Mac-like. Smoother fonts, shadows, bigger text boxes with rounded edges, menu effects, and new screen savers and wallpaper. This may seem like a pro- to some of you, but in all reality I believe it is a con (no pun intended). All this stuff makes the OS huge and takes away from your memory. I think they should have stripped this OS bare and focused more on what was important--the functionality of the OS.

Next con. . .price. What the hell!?!? I understand that developers worked a long time on this, and Microsoft needs to make a buck, but come on. Is there really $100 worth of difference between the Home version and Professional? Make them the same price and let people choose the one that suits them best. Do NOT do what I did and spend $200 on an OS that is not all that its cracked up to be.

There are more minor annoyances with XP as with all OSs, like not having nearly as much customizable control over your environment, programs having to be re-installed (or not working at all, like norton Antivirus and CD-creator), and just having to re-acquaint yourself with the new look that has moved all of your familiar icons to different places. These you will discover on your own. . .

The good points of XP are there too.

It does boot incredibly fast. I was skeptical at first, but I have seen it increase my boot time by almost 30 seconds (from win 2k) and well over 20 seconds for my Me machine.

The plug-and-play features on XP are fantastic. It recognized all of my hardware and set it up for me without a hitch (excluding the networking issues I discussed earlier, but that wasn't a hardware issue anyway).

The included CD-burning sftware was co-developed with Roxio, the makers of CD-Creator, and works just as well. The files you burn are copied to a temporary file, which is kin've annoying and takes extra time, but i have never burned a coaster yet. Not sure how effective it is at overburning or making backups of copy-protected software as I have not attempted yet.

It has a compatibility mode built too. I have some old DOS programs than need to run in DOS mode, but I can emulate a DOS window in XP, even though it has abandoned the traditional DOS files that were ever present on older windows versions. You can also emulate Windows Me, NT, 2000, and 98 if you have version-specific software. Not sure what that would be, but it is there just in case.

Bottom line is that you really don't NEED XP. The setup I had before was working fine, and I would have $200 more right now if I wasn't so darn gadget minded. If you are still using windows 95 or 3.1, for heaven's sake upgrade. But for the majority of us, resist the pretty colors and save yourself $200.


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