Windows XP Is HERE FINALLY

As a upgrade to Windows 2000 PRO, this is just a minor upgrade. BUT as a upgrade of the win9x ,it is as important as the upgrade from Windows 3.x to Windows 95 When the NT operating system came out , because it was not backward compatible plus harder for novice's to work with. They had to come out with Windows 3.x, which made for a very easy to use and easy to learn for the computer novice. Plus it was backward compatible with most dos/win3.x programs. When Windows 95 came out finally a 32 bit system was available. Because it was built on top of dos, there were and are many bugs.
As MS moved from 95/98/98SE/Me and from NT 3.x to Windows 2000, this has been a learning process for MS.
I know as I have used computers since 1984, starting with the Sinclair TS1000/TS2068-Sinclair QL, then moved to IBM compatibles . Started with MS-DOS 3/5/6.22-Windows 3.x/95/98/98SE/Me and now Windows XP. So I have been through most of the transitions since then. Thought I should mention, I have been a MS Beta Tester since Dec of 1997 and that is why it cost me $0. Even so if I did not like this as much as I do,"I would not recommend it."

I did have this review at "What you should know about Windows" on epinions as at the time Epinions was in transition and I could not get to Windows 2000 reviews, plus it seemed at the time that was not going to have a review area for Windows XP.

Windows XP Home-Pro Drivers/software

As I said before this is a major upgrade from the Windows 9.x operating system. With this version, MS has made sure that the hardware manufactures write and design their drivers so that with this addition, the drivers cause no problems with the operating system. 80% of the problems caused on Win9.x , was caused by poorly written drivers. The other 15% were caused by poorly written applications that accessed wrong areas of the OS. 5% were caused by bugs in the OS. For your information, there is no operating system that is completely bug proof and this includes Linux/ Beos or any other operating system.
Because of the care MS has taken with both drivers and how applications access memory. Makes this the most stable than any previous MS OS including dos.
To find out if your hardware/software is compatible with Windows XP go here
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp
Bewarned .

About the old programs that do not run(DOS,win3.x and win9.x) many times the writer would have the programs access low level areas of the hardware. Windows XP does not allow this, so do not expect all programs to run.

Why Activation


I can understand where MS is coming out with this. This is mainly for the casual user. Who do not realize that with MOST software and this includes many of MS competitors, That they DO NOT own the software but are only buying a license to use the software. Every piece of software,that I have knowledge of, includes a EULA (End User License Agreement). In that agreement it states that this software can only be used on a single computer and if installed on another computer, it must be un-installed from the previous computer.
To give an example, say with Windows(All). Say there are 200,000,000 of the operating system installed on computers and only 1% of them are illegally installed by the casual user. This means that at only $70 per license (low I know). the total loss works out to be $1,400,000,000 and what company wants to lose this amount of money.
As I said before this is only for the casual user and not for those who will on purpose, illegally install this or for those who will actually pirate the software for their own profit. You can bet that all the software developers out there are watching and hoping that MS has figured a way to do this that is unobtrusive,simple and fast. Also that most of their customers do not mind. Personally I think they have.
For those critics out there that think that MS is mining their personal information. Wrong
Check here http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/mpafaq.asp
and here http://www.winsupersite.com .
or here http://www.licenturion.com/xp/fully-licensed-wpa.txt
the last site. Investigated what was sent and received so check it out.
Also you do not even have to register that you own this computer as activation is completely different than registration.
With this, it is tied to the specific hardware. With this and a network card you can change about 6 items and not have to reactivate. After either 60 to 90 days your computer sets the activation to zero and you can change 6 more items. I know this does not tell all but do a little research and you to will find this out for your self .
There are 3 ways to activate.
1 Via the internet
2 By modem if no Internet connection
3 By phone - a 800 number and you talk to a MS representative. By the way this is a 24/7 access. Also if they ask your name , if you wish, tell them you don't want to. You will still receive activation.
I have used all 3 methods and it very easy.
On OEM activation, I imagine that a lot of the OEM's will tie this to the BIOS. Which means that you can change as much hardware as you want but if you upgrade the motherboard, you will have to buy the board from them. Or deal with activation as all others do. As a side note, the software that you get from OEM's can ONLY be installed on these computers, in other words you will not be able to install on a second computer.
I have changed or put in 3 video cards, added memory, put a cd-rw in(not there when activated), changed harddrive(bigger) and no re-activation needed.

Windows XP Home Edition or what is in both Home/Pro

Remember this is a small subset of the Windows XP Pro so what is in Home is in the Professional Edition.
This operating system is fast,stable and can run about 90% of all the old applications for the Windows 9.x systems and dos. Some of the applications that will not run are like Norton System Works as they have to be written for the XP system. As time goes by the manufactures will release drivers for the XP system. In the mean time, you can try the Windows 2000 drivers, might work, but that does not mean they will all work or not cause instability. On others you might try Win9.x drivers but don't expect them to work, most likely or if they do-not to cause instability. As far as hardware "Just remember you get what you pay for." In other words With old or cheap hardware it is possible that you will never get updated drivers for XP.
Security
There are many reasons that XP is more secure. I will try and list most of them here. One is the use of NTFS disk system instead of Fat32. Using NTFS you can encrypt files and folders that others can not decipher(XP PRO). You can use Fat32 but why when NTFS is more secure.
Also with XP you can give each user their own account . By giving them limited accounts, they can not add some programs to the system. With limited accounts, I can also deny them access to certain files. E-mail virus can not auto run with out administrator permission. What I do is for the internet, I even gave my self a limited account so that when I'm on the net, no program can run , that is not already there. This way no virus has no access to raw sockets as reported by grc.com .
It also includes a minor firewall, I have both XP's firewall working and ZoneAlarm. I have no problems with this.
About the tiny firewall, I have about 20 friends who's computer's, I work on. I tell everyone of them, that even with a dial-up connection they should ALWAYS have a firewall running. But 95% of them do not/will not or they take the program off their computer, because for them it causes too much of a hassle. Even the ones who especially have a always on connection have un-installed it. So yes I'm glad it's there. Even if all it does is make their computer's invisible, it's more than they have had before.

Digital Media

Windows Media Player

Many people have the mistaken idea that WMP will not play MP3 files and that is very far from the truth. The truth is it will play MP3 at full encoded frequency. The mistake many people has that encoding has to do with playback. Wrong, encoding is converting wma or audio files into MP3 format.. I have a lot of MP3 files and they are all played with WMP with no problems. As for MP3 encoding, you can get this from other providers.
Digital Movies
WMP will play DVD movies but as with MP3 encoding, you will have to buy a add on that will soon be available for about $10 to $20 dollars. I wish I could say more but I have not used any so I can't review this but only tell what I know. I have also not used Movie Maker so I can't report on this but from what I understand it just has simple editing features.
Digital Photos
With Windows XP , if you have a digital camera. You can use the software that comes with XP or the software that comes with the camera, you have a choice of what you want to use. I use my camera with XP. When I plug in the USB plug I have a choice of what I want to use to acquire the photos. PS I don't actually own a camera but borrowed one from my son to experiment with.

Networking and the Internet

Windows is simple and efficient in setting up connection sharing and offers a simple step-by-step help in setting up your network, no matter what operating system you have on your other computers. Windows XP supports wireless networking and even easy to set up on some machines that run either a ethernet working and also with phone wire-based networking . You can use all 3 protocols are seamlessly working together in Windows XP. It will also allow Internet Sharing and will do this automatically on your network.
Desktop
The Start Button has change for the better I think. When expand the start button . There are 3 partitions. First pane is where IE. Outlook are located. Also most used programs(5 on mine). More programs. Second panel is files such as my computer, my pictures, network connections, control panel,help and support,my music and several others.
Luna interface is the default on the desktop. You can use Windows Classic if you wish but after you get used to Luna , you might like it, I do. After I used it for a while.
Windows XP Pro
This is designed primarily for the business and is really not for the consumer. All I can do here is list what I know is added but since I did not test XP Pro, I cannot give a review on how they work or how well.
Rooming profiles, log on to Active Directory based domains,encrypting file systems and off-line files and folders. Support for two processors,Remote Desktop,a backup utility and IIS 5.1

How it has worked for me

I have a AMD K6-2 400, 196 meg PC133 ram, 21 gig hard drive space, Creative 64PCI audio Creative Audio card, 32x cd rom drive, ATI 3D Rage Pro 2x AGP card, optical USB mouse and Haupauge WinTv card. Every card but the WinTv card had the drivers installed. I did have to use Windows 2000 drivers to get this to work but works it does and it is fantastic.
Oops I forgot - the parallel zip drive was not detected but by going to start button/ right click on my computer/properties/hardware/device manager/ports/printer port/ port settings and checking the box for legacy PnP devices as soon as I closed the device manager than the system detected the zip drive and installed drivers for it.
I have run this for the last 2 months with no problems and I love it's speed. Windows XP will run with 64 meg of ram but there are things it will not run optimally. With 128 meg it is very,very good and with 196 meg it's well just WOW.
I think that everyone that is running Windows should check this out. Sure the install base (for XP Home) is large but with the prices of the hardware and their capabilities, compared to what was in Windows 95 and the size of Hard drives then(I bought a 640 meg hard drive for $200 in 1996 and Windows 95 used 33% of the drive) and you can now get a 40 gig hard drive for less than $100(and use less than 10% of the drive). You also have 100 times or more of the capabilities of the computers then.

Installing
Finally finished my installing Windows XP Home/Pro. I put this on the Windows XP Pro area.



Recommended: Yes